TIL a simple dimension mistake cost me 4 hours of rework on a stair detail

I was drafting a set of stairs for a custom home and accidentally used the rough opening measurement instead of the finished opening. It took me over 4 hours to track down why my stringers were off by almost 3 inches. Has anyone else had a tiny error like that spiral into a full day of fixing things?

2 comments

2 Comments

spencer_moore391mo ago

Heard this exact thing happen to my buddy who builds cabinets for a living. He was working on a built-in bookshelf and used the measurement from the floor instead of checking if the ceiling was level. Ended up having to rip out a whole section of crown molding and redo the top trim because there was a half inch gap that kept getting bigger as he went. Took him damn near a whole Saturday to fix it and he still talks about it when we grab beers. It's wild how one little number can throw everything off.

johnthompson1mo ago

Nah, I gotta push back on that. Your buddy's the one who messed up, not the method. Real pros always check their starting point. Floor's never perfectly level, ceiling's never perfectly flat either. That's carpentry 101. Half inch gap sounds like he assumed instead of measured. That's on him, not on using the floor as a reference.