An Updated Handrail
This home’s original handrail just didn’t work with the updated tile floors and the high ceilings and spectacular views of this Ken Caryl residence. We added an updated handrail with some modern flair.
Finished handrail painted, accent color painted as well
Rake rail with mortised in balusters, perfectly parallel grip rail
Lovely bevel detail on a solid hemlock newel. All rail connections are rail-bolted and trim screwed.
Tidy little grip rail, matches main handrail, custom milled from solid poplar—no fingerjoints!
Shoeless Iron Balusters
Most iron balusters are installed with a “shoe,” a little trim ring that mimics a moulding installed at the base of the baluster to hide the fact that we’ve just fit a square peg into a round hole. For a cleaner look, we’ve gone through and filled the surrounding bores with a flexible epoxy and sanded them flush so that once painted, the balusters will disappear into the bullnose trim. We opted to use the existing bullnose due to it being immediately adjacent to several brand new finishes that couldn’t be disturbed without re-doing a lot.
Custom Handrail
Due to supply chain issues and this handrail’s popularity, we had to make it custom from select grade solid poplar. No finger-joints! This is all one continuous piece of solid poplar—all the rails actually.
Where it Started.
Original colonial revival handrail with ball finials and turned tapered balusters. The new tile floors were already installed, adjacent to the bull nose of the stair, so we had to work with those as they were.
