Getting furniture down a Fan District staircase

The short answer

A sofa out of a Fan rowhouse is $126. So is a sofa out of a ground-floor ranch in Tuckahoe. There is no stair charge, no walk-up fee, and no adjustment for the landing turn.

That is worth stating plainly, because the assumption in the Fan is that a hard carry costs more. It does not. What the stairs change is how many people arrive and what tools they bring — not the number on your quote.

Why these staircases are the way they are

The Fan's housing stock is mostly rowhouses built between about 1890 and 1925, on lots roughly sixteen to twenty feet wide. Everything in the plan is a consequence of that width.

The staircase runs up one side of a narrow entry hall, steeply, because there is no horizontal room to make it gentler. Near the top it turns — a quarter-turn landing, sometimes a winder with wedge-shaped treads. Above the landing the ceiling drops, because the second-floor hallway is directly overhead.

That combination is the pinch point for every large piece of furniture in the house. You need to stand a sofa on end to swing it through the turn, and the ceiling above the landing is frequently too low to let you. This is not a defect. It is a 130-year-old house built before anyone owned a three-seat sectional.

The pieces that get stuck

Ranked by how often they cause a problem in a Fan house:

• Box springs. The worst offender, because they do not flex at all. A rigid queen box spring frequently cannot make the turn. This is why split box springs exist and why a lot of Fan bedrooms have one.
• Sectionals. A three-piece sectional at $185 usually separates, which saves it. A two-piece at $141 sometimes does not separate as cleanly as the label suggests.
• Sleeper sofas. $149, and heavy in exactly the wrong place — the folding mechanism puts the weight at the bottom, so it does not pivot the way a normal sofa does.
• Armoires and large dressers. $197 for a large solid-wood armoire, $148 for a large dresser. They come out with drawers and doors removed, which usually does it.
• Upright pianos. $290. These came in before the house was finished in some cases. They go down with a stair dolly, straps and a properly planned route.

How a crew actually gets a sofa down

In order, least destructive first:

• Legs off. Four bolts, usually. Buys two or three inches, which is often all that is needed.
• Stand it on end and pivot at the landing. The standard move. Needs clearance above the turn.
• Strip the back. On many sofas the back panel or rail is separately attached. Removing it reduces the depth enough to clear the turn.
• Out through a front window. Rare, but Fan houses have tall double-hung sash windows on the second floor and a front porch roof below many of them. Where the stairs are genuinely impossible and the window and porch geometry allow it, this is a real option.
• Cut it down in place. The last resort and, for something that is going to disposal anyway, a perfectly sensible one. A sofa that is being thrown away does not need to survive the trip.

Every one of those is inside the $126.

Protecting the house

This matters more in the Fan than almost anywhere else in Richmond, because the surfaces are original and expensive to repair.

The plaster on a Fan stairwell is usually lime plaster over wood lath, and a gouge in it is not a drywall patch — it is a plasterer. The newel post and balusters are often original turned wood. The stair treads are heart pine with a hundred years of patina. The front door surround and transom are frequently original joinery.

Which is why a competent carry involves blankets over the newel post, corner protection at the landing, and the door propped rather than swinging. Say so when you book if the stairwell has original plaster or a decorative newel — it is worth thirty seconds of the conversation.

Parking, which is the other half of the job

The Fan's streets are narrow, mostly one-way, and parked solid on both sides for most of the day. Many blocks are in residential permit zones.

What helps: tell us the cross streets, tell us whether the block has a loading space or a hydrant gap, and if there is a rear alley say whether a truck can get down it and whether it stays clear during the day. A morning slot is usually easier than an afternoon one.

None of this changes the price. It changes whether the crew spends twenty minutes circling Hanover Avenue before they start.

What Fan jobs typically cost

• One sofa, second floor: $126.
• A bedroom cleared, second floor: mattress + box spring set $143 + bed frame $68 + dresser (standard) $126 + nightstand $57. The addition: $143 + $68 + $126 + $57 = $394. A three-eighths truck is $338, so if it fits that tier, $338 is the quote.
• A whole flat, third floor: sofa $126 + coffee table $67 + dining table (2-4 seat) $103 + two dining chairs at $45 each = $90 + bookshelf $72 + queen mattress $103 + bed frame $68. The addition: $126 + $67 + $103 + $90 + $72 + $103 + $68 = $629. A half truck is $431 and a five-eighths is $513 — the ladder wins.

If you are doing it yourself

Two people minimum, and the one walking backwards down the stairs is doing the harder job — put the stronger person there, not at the top. Take the legs off before you start, not halfway down when you are already committed. Blanket the newel post. And accept early that a box spring which will not turn is not going to turn because you tried harder.

The other Fan-specific hazard is August. A rowhouse stairwell with no air movement, at a heat index in the high nineties, is genuinely punishing. If the job can wait until October, wait.

Frequently asked questions