Stair & Railing Work in Lake County, IL

Two quotes on the same job can differ by half, and it is almost never because one is greedy. It is because they are describing different work. These are the questions that make them comparable.

Code compliance. Baluster spacing, handrail height, graspability and guard height are all regulated, and a stair that fails inspection or shows up in an inspection report on sale is expensive to redo. Ask directly whether the quote is built to current code.

Is the existing structure sound? Squeaks and movement come from treads, risers and stringers working against each other. Cosmetic work over a structure that moves will squeak again. Somebody should be looking underneath.

Material and finish. Oak, poplar, maple and painted MDF are very different prices and very different lifespans on a stair that gets daily traffic.

Newel posts. How they are anchored is the difference between a rail you can lean on and one that wobbles. This is structural, not decorative.

Site protection and dust. Stair work is dusty and it sits in the middle of the house. A quote that mentions containment has thought about you living there.

Carpentry has its own vocabulary and most of it is never explained to the person paying for the work. Here is what the terms on your estimate actually mean.

Cope. An inside corner cut where one piece is scribed to the profile of the other rather than both being cut at 45 degrees. Coped joints stay closed as a house moves through the seasons. Mitred inside corners open up. It is the single clearest tell of finish carpentry versus trim installation.

Scribe. Cutting a piece to follow the actual shape of a wall, floor or ceiling instead of assuming it is straight. Nothing in a house is straight, and scribing is what makes work sit tight against reality.

Reveal. The small deliberate setback where casing meets a door jamb, usually about a quarter inch. It gives the eye a line and hides the fact that the jamb edge is never perfectly flush. Zero reveal looks like a mistake.

Spring angle. The angle at which crown molding sits between wall and ceiling. It determines every cut on the run, and it changes on a vaulted or angled ceiling — which is why those get set off the actual ceiling rather than a chart.

Built-up. A profile assembled from several stock pieces to make a larger or more complex shape than any single piece offers. It is how original profiles in older houses get matched when the exact moulding is no longer made.

Shim. A thin tapered wedge used to bring something to plumb or level in an opening that is neither. Every door hung in an older house depends on them.

Blocking. Extra framing added inside a wall so something can be anchored to it later — a grab bar, a floating shelf, a heavy mirror, a wall-hung vanity. Cheap while the wall is open, expensive afterwards.

Plumb, level, square. Vertical, horizontal, and at right angles. Three separate things, and in an older house you often cannot have all three at once. Deciding which one to hold is a judgement call.

Face frame. The flat frame on the front of a cabinet carcase that the doors mount to. Frameless cabinets do without it, which is a different look and a different install.

Filler and scribe moulding. The narrow pieces that close the gap between a cabinet run and a wall that is not straight. They are what makes an installation look built in rather than pushed into place.

Jamb. The frame a door sits in. On exterior doors it is usually where the rot is, and replacing the slab without the jamb often solves nothing.

Stringer, tread, riser. The angled board carrying a staircase, the part you step on, and the vertical face between steps. Squeaks come from those three moving against each other.