Stupid Scaffolding Tricks

We already established that the scaffolding we own is not tall enough to reach into the upper corners of the stairwell. Rather than buy another section, we decided to try a slightly different configuration, of the type that would never pass OSHA muster.

We set one piece up on the stairs, then the other half on the lower piece and half up the floor in the upstairs hall. There's a piece of wood in there to keep the upper scaffolding from breaking through the lower one's thin plank.

When I finished the bit of wall and ceiling I could reach from this position, I moved the upper scaffolding over like so:

(Except it turned out I had to rotate the wheels on the upper part 90 degrees, or the whole thing wobbled excessively.)

I didn't have any trouble working on this setup: it was stable enough and while I was not taking any big risks I also didn't feel in danger of falling. And it was a long way down.

The main challenge I had was changing out my bucket of water. The water gets gross after a relatively small amount of scrubbing, but when the scaffolding is set up like this on the stairs, I can't reach the plank at all from below, so it either means climbing down and up one-handed (not going to happen), or possibly having an assistant. Noel was out at a music thing, so instead I used a clamp to hang the bucket lower, where I could reach it. It worked pretty well.

It was not going to work for bringing a dog up with me.

We recently discovered that Goldie has gone mostly deaf. We think it might just be an ear infection that can be cleared up, but I've been trying to help her out by always touching her and showing here where I am going. She really wanted to come upstairs with me.

And I got quite a bit done today. I was even able to take part of the scaffolding down by myself, which was probably asking for trouble. The lower part will require help, though.

There's only one problematic area, which is over the winders in the staircase. We've gone through a number of possibilities but it is basically going to come down to building a specially fitted platform to go over those stairs so we can set a ladder on them.

It's really a very small area, maybe only a couple hours of work apart from time spent moving ladders and refilling buckets and so forth. And then I'm on to the repair portion of the hallway.

posted by ayse on 11/24/12