Who knew studs were so hard to find?

I helped my father last Sunday put up a railing along part of their staircase to the upper level of their house. It would complement the existing banister. My father had the railing ready to go. We just had to attach it to something solid.

That meant looking for studs in the staircase or opposite wall that we could screw the railing into so those using it to balance themselves wouldn’t tumble down the stairs and get bonked on the head with the railing to boot. I don’t think detachable railings would sell very well unless the manufacturer also held stock in medical supply companies.

Initially my father drilled into the staircase only to find it was not solid, so we needed to find the part of it that was … the stud.

My father’s eyesight isn’t too great, and my carpentry skills are dimmer still, so we were quite a pair working on this project.

My mother was smart and stayed in the kitchen making some wonderful cream cheese brownies, which were a very sweet reward when the job was done.

Oso was also smart, for the most part, and remained at the bottom of the stairs on the landing by the front door (my folks’ house is a split level, with the stairs connecting the bedrooms upstairs to the living room and kitchen below.) One time he decided to check things out, as he is a very inquisitive creature (heard there was a need for a stud, I think, although his “stud” duties were nipped in the bud, so to speak, when he was a pup.) He then thought better of it and went back to his spectator spot on the landing. He really is a smart dog.

Just eyeballing it, neither my father nor I could find a stud. My father knew he had a stud finder but didn’t know right off where it was. I had no idea what a stud finder was or how it worked, so I wasn’t much help in that department. Actually the most help I was in the whole project was to hold things.

I suggested my folks’ neighbor John might have a stud finder, so my father went next door and borrowed his. John loves tools and has quite a collection, so I figured he would have a fancy tool for this task. I was not impressed. It was basically a stick with a magnet on the end of it. So that’s a stud finder? That kind of took the magic out of that implement. Stud finders simply seek the metal nails that are pounded into the studs. That’s how you know where a stud is. I don’t know how I thought it worked, but somehow I thought it was more elaborate.

A little magnet on the end of a stick is not that effective in finding a nail in a drywall “haystack.” My father was able to find his stud finder, which brought back a bit more of the magic, since it had a light that glowed if it struck precious metal, AKA your standard nail.

Eventually we located enough nails to find the studs to screw our railing onto. We had to switch out the screws and drill bits (Oso really kept his distance from the sight-challenged man with an electric drill in his hand and an unskilled laborer “helping” him) before we could finish the job, but we finally accomplished our task.

The brownies were nicely cooled by then, and my mother graciously bought us liquid refreshments to reward us for our labor (smoothies for her and me and a limeade for my father.)

I don’t think we will hire ourselves out for banister railing work, although we would make out pretty well if we were paid by the hour.

I did learn something though.

If I’d known what a stud finder was earlier, I would have stuck a magnet to my head years ago.