Notes from the courtyard
You can get remarkably far with a tracing paper and some a steady hand. We start every project by spending time on the site at different hours.
Small things
If something here is unclear, that is on me, not you. In August the light changes, and so does the work. Materials should age well rather than stay new. None of this is new, and that is partly why it works. A threshold can change how an entire house feels.
Small buildings demand the same care as large ones, sometimes more. This began as a quick note and bit by bit turned into something longer. I like staircases that shows the marks of how it was made. I changed my mind about staircases twice while writing this. The local part is rarely the hard part; consistency is.
We draw by hand early on; it keeps decisions loose.
First steps
It is not glamorous, but it holds up. The best renovation keeps more than it replaces. The best advice I got was just to slow down. You can get remarkably far with a measuring tape and some a steady hand.
A friend once described brick as calm work, and the phrase stuck. Good staircases is mostly a series of small, unglamorous decisions. I wrote most of this on a calm Thursday morning.