Comments on: Ask Vicente: Railing Dilemma

By: jenny

jenny — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:52:00 +0000

Check hacienda style dot com, the folks in wimberly whose deal in the mexican antiques. I suggest a 1 x 10 with some kind of shape cut out, like an urn or something, kind of rustic. That would be typical for the southwest good luck. It could be painted or not.

By: Christine Hale

Christine Hale — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:12:25 +0000

I agree that you need to replace the rail now vs thinking you will do it later. It is going to be much harder once the house is finished. It seems that it may look too busy once you get the tile in, so a simpler rail would work nicely…maybe you could sell that rail and a simpler one may be less expensive.

By: Carl

Carl — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:52:45 +0000

Ok, call me crazy but could you not in fact have the railing painted a bronzy copper color to soften it much like the walls and give it a little more age and or character ? And maybe at the first step add a decorative wood column of sorts with the metal railing continuing from the metal column to the wood column again to give the railing character. Perhaps you could even replace the last column at the top of the stairs with a wood column finishing the look ? Good luck, be well and enjoy !

By: Kammy Kenman

Kammy Kenman — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:57:44 +0000

These are always tricky situations when a contractor/builder says that “this is your only option”. See if there is anything else that you can compromise on that’s not as visible to affect the budget and change the rail now. Once that rail is in you will never change it-too much to undo.
Start scouring the magazines for ideas and present them to your builder-make it a win win and feed his ego. You might have offer to do the leg work to see if you can sell the rail or if it can be returned…there is always a solution.
Good Luck….

By: Angie

Angie — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:19:23 +0000

Whatever you decide, I would definitely get the something to the bottom step. We (on purpose) put the newel post on the second to last step because I saw it in a magazine and I thought it looked great (against my builders suggestion.) We have had at least one person miss the last step and fall and I have almost missed it a few times too. I would never do this again…..

By: mandy

mandy — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:23:39 +0000

I’m not sure about the building code where you live but that railing ending shy of the last step is probably not code-compliant. If that is the case you have a legitimate reason to ask your builder to fix his mistake at his cost. This doesn’t solve the problem of the style being out of place but it will at least make the railing structure look correct.