I recently moved into an 80+ year old house and am looking to fix up the main staircase. It seems to be the original (oak?) wood stair that is built using the closed / housed / mortised stringers that don't seem to be widely used any longer.
Most of the suggestions for fixing up these types of stairs that I find online suggest going in from behind and fixing/adding shims, extra fasteners and glue.
In my case the back of the stairscase is not accessible and is plastered and I'd rather not get into removing that as my first project in the house.
The problem is that over the years the treads and risers have shifted back from their mortised positions as seen here:
I tried pulling one tread forward and I can do it with a bit of work. However the riser behind it stays in place and the gap between the two widens:
I'd love to be able to pull them all back into position and fasten in place (thinking of using finishing nails here to fasten to stringers as well as treads to risers) before moving on to refinishing the wood. However, I am at a bit of a loss on how to pull the risers forward.
I think perhaps screwing something to them and using that to pull forward might work. However, given my lack of DIY experience I am not sure what might be appropriate.
Any suggestions for tools / process would be appreciated.