Amateur carpenters who have laid out the cuts in a stair stringer (the zig-zag structural support for the steps) know the queasy feeling that bubbles up at the prospect of this job. There’s the simple ...

I feel it’s important for you to understand the structure of a set of stairs before you get out your saw and framing square.

To lay out a set of stair stringers from scratch requires a little math, but not much. Equally important is some quiet time to run the numbers and at the same time to think about the construction ...