having procured the pole to build the staircase around, it was time to test the first step. i’ve spent endless hours trying to figure out how to build a secure staircase without spending thousands of dollars and i settled on a very basic design that uses heavy duty 20” angle brackets from home depot that are rated to hold 600 pounds. i hoped to get away with using one for each step but there was, predictably, a bit of wiggle when i attached the 12″ wide tread to the 1” bracket even when using some beefy lag bolts.

i was ruminating on how to make it more sturdy and odin said, “use two brackets?”

of course! it’s a little tricky to get the brackets lined up with the curvature of the pole and exactly in the right spot on the tread but it’s sooooooolid!

the brackets are $10 a piece and the most expensive part of the staircase so using two per step doubles my cost, but it’s worth it to ensure a stable step that will last for years and it’s still 1/10th of the cost of getting a custom staircase kit. i’m not happy about the white color but if you want a 20” angle bracket rated to 600 pounds you can have any color you want as long as it’s white.

this is just a test step. the pole is going to get sunk 3.5 feet in the ground and i’m going to build the staircase from the top down.