Gloria and Nathan have been looking at an interior shear wall that would extend about six feet from the left wall as you are facing the back of the house. This wall would essentially cover the resin panel behind the stairs and destroy the floating feeling of the stairs. To address this they have proposed to use a Hardy steel brace frame to replace the wall. The frame required by our structural engineer is 6′ tall which presents a slight problem in that the ceiling height is 9′ and the frame needs to be bolted to the concrete stem walls. So, we need to raise the stem wall up through the subfloor and bolt it to that. Sean has agreed to make the changes and the cost difference, so far, looks to be around $800. Jenn and I spent a lot of time reviewing this as we were a bit concerned about having something “unfinished” looking in the bedroom area. However, after a lot of discussion we decided to go with Gloria and Nathan’s recommendation. The next decision regarding the stair well is the proposed mesh they want to use. There are pictures below. We feel it is a bit industrial, however, it is nice an open. Perhaps the floor to ceiling treatment is a bit intense, but also perhaps once the house is complete we could just remove it? I’d like to have the stair as open as possible.

Our friend Dudley drew up a shadow line detail for us to try save some money by not using the Fry Reglet reveal. 

Basically you put a 2×4 down while you hang the dry wall then pull it out paint the framing black and put in a standard L-corner bead. Also, Steve pointed out this really cool company which makes cans for CCFC and LED lights. Something we really should look into. The company is called Axiom and their products look pretty cool.