Replace 1970s stair ballustrades

Apr 02, 2009 6 Replies

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Painters10 17 years ago

I want to replace our old fashioned 1970's style stair ballustrades/ bannisters with standard separate spindles etc.

I went through the Richard Burbridge Stairplanner program (which I thought was pretty good) but unfortunately I cannot get the stairs to be the same as mine.

Our stair case is a 180degree type with a small middle landing. The bannisters are the horrible wide plank types that go up at the same angle as the stairs. The problem I have is that the newel post on the small landing is only a single post, so I cannot see how I can get two sets of spindles onto this.

I've uploaded a photo showing the single newel post:

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occurs to me that lots of houses have had these built like this and this can't be the first time someone wanted to change it.

Has anyone on here done this?

Thanks Painters10

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EricP 17 years ago

Yes you are looking at it the wrong way and creating an optical illusion.

The new spindles will go exactly where the planks are now and the newels will be side by side taking each set of spindles up and down.

The only problem will be preparing the bases for the newels to attach securely to but you may be able to bolt both together and only need to fix one into the fabric of the staircase.

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EricP 17 years ago

An alternative would be to only use one newell for the stair coming up and this could be fixed to the old post but this would mean cutting the old post vertically to allow the new newell to line up with the spindles coming up. The corner would be a 90 degree handrail corner, supported by the existing post and some more wood put in vertically to finish to look decent.

(Wish I could draw, it would be obvious then, sorry)

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John Rumm 17 years ago

What you need are two newel posts in the middle - side by side. One with its centre inline with the string on the lower flight, and one inline with the string on the upper flight. Then it all works nicely.

I would be tempted to take out the existing newel as best you can, then chop out the bases of the new newels such that they end up housing the existing strings. That would make a nice strong and easy fixing for the newels.

I have built stairs and balustrades - but with quarter rather than half turns.

If you look at:

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two photos before the last show a half return along the middle landing. Unlike on your stairs, I had even less width to play with (i.e. less that the width of a post), and so cheated slightly by offsetting the newel post such that the two sets of rails intersected with the newel on alternate edges.

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meow2222 17 years ago

Is there enough space? It would look odd. Could one not use a single newel with either a curved bend on the end of each hand rail, or have the handrails supported on brackets so the rails arent in line with the newel?

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John Rumm 17 years ago

It would probably look more odd having spindles out of line with the newel though...

(you see two newels side by side from time to time, and it does not look that unusual)

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TheScullster 17 years ago

"Painters10" wrote

Hi Painters10

I am looking to do a similar job - see "extending newel post" 29-04-09. Have pinched your link to illustrate (photographer has been credited).

I intend to replace the ranch planking between the intermediate landing with spindles, but use a handrail only on the opposite side for the first stair flight IYSWIM.

Phil

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