Custom stair railings installed

Last Friday, Bill Curran came to install the steel handrails at our stairwells, just in time for the DVGBC Green Home tour on Saturday, 6/20. We had a great turnout of about 35 people who stopped by to see the house- our project was the 2nd stop on a tour that also included Bancroft Green, Thin Flats, and Market Flats. Nearly everyone braved the rain to climb up our timber ladder to the green roof for a glimpse of the skyline and the sedum plants in full bloom. Click here for a slideshow compiled by one of the tour-goers. (Thanks, Brandon for sharing your photos!)

Below are some shots of the steel guys working out the details and then clamping and site welding the rails in place. The tolerances that these guys work to is pretty amazing. They site measure and then cut almost all the steel in their shop and are usually within a 1/16" when they come to put it all together on site.





















Below you can see the how the stair rail turns and connects to the guard rail at the second floor. Bill and I went over a number of different ways to execute this and worked out the details in his shop. We think it came out pretty nice.
















Here are a couple of shots of the stair and railing from the first floor. We pulled back the protective cardboard on the floor temporarily so you can see how the cherry floors and the exposed brick look against the black steel rails and reclaimed timber treads. The treads you see here are temporary (made from old pine timbers found in the alleyway behind the house), but look very similar to the final reclaimed oak timbers which still need to be planed down and cleaned up before being installed.