Sorry in advance, but the search wasn't working for me this morning. Looking for advice on how to attach steps to an 8" joist. And I'm going to try and ask this question without pictures, so bear with me. Its only 2 steps, but the deck is just far enough away from the patio, that a box step won't work. I'd rather not add a 3rd step at the top, and extend further onto the patio. Its also a fairly lengthy run (14'), so I need to use notched stringers. So conventional framing shows I only have about 1.75" of stringer hitting the lower part of my 2x8. I could hang a 2x6 below my 2x8, but again, its a long run, and then you have straps, etc, and not sure if that's structural enough for the beating steps take. I could also "inset" a "3rd step" between the rim joist and the next one over with blocking, etc, but then I've got an 8.25" rise on my first step that needs to be accounted for, and frankly, that's alot more difficult proposition for all the stringers I'm going to need for this long run. (its composite decking, so i'm only going to span 12") It would be so much easier if I could do the 3rd step at deck height thing, and just nail the whole thing flush to the joist. Again, I don't want the 3rd step. SO, long story to ask this question. Picture the notched stringer with the 3rd step. 6.5" rise, and 10.5" run. What if I cut off 9" and left a 6.5" rise, with a 1.5" run. Then attached 2xwhatever between the stringers, giving me all that meat to attach the steps system to the 8" joist, and then simply ran my deck boards 1.5" long to cover the 3rd "step?" 1.5" of extra run onto the patio I can handle...... Thoughts?