redoing the railing in a split-foyer

AndyH24

I've got another project I'm planning out. I was wanting to get some input on how you all would do it. Basically as you can see in the pictures, we have partial walls for railings. I would like to remove these walls and put up a traditional railing. I want to leave the closet at the top also. Anyone have pics of a splitfoyer with traditional railing?

Just Bill

The short wall with the wood top should be easy, depending on how much you leave for the step finish trim. Not sure about the high wall, I suspect it is load bearing. You need some on site expert advice for that.

AndyH24

well on the short wall I'd like to do something like this


on the big wall, I only want to remove the upper part down to finished floor.

guest

I agree with Bill you probably will have to put in a beam for support if you try and remove the tall wall because it looks to be load-bearing to me as well. You need to definitely have a structural professional look at it before removing any part of it.

AndyH24

Well it's been a year and I finally got around to doing this project! I thought I would update you all with some pictures. Here's is a link to my picasa album.

https://picasaweb.google.com/AndyHaw...eat=directlink

I am very pleased with the way it turned out. Let me know what you all think!

Thanks!
Andy

Ler0y Jenkins

Andy,

That looks great! I wanna do the same style railing. I don't have the half-wall style, so I'll just have to remove the old railing and install the new railing and balusters. Did the top of your balusters have a round or square end? I ask becuase the ones in Home Depot are square on top and I can't figure out why. It's sort of hard to drill a square hole, if you know what I mean. I'm guessing you could just drill a round hole that's enough to accept the square end and then use the caps that you have used. Is that what you did?

Also, it looks like you just screwed the bottom plate to the floor, plugged the hole, sanded the board and stained. Is that correct?

Thanks,

Kevin

mae-ling

Looks Good!

AndyH24

I got the balusters at lowes. They are round at the top and square on the bottom. I used forstner bits and drilled a 1/2" hole for the top and 5/8" for the bottom. For the bottom plate are you talking about the oak 1x6? If so, I used a 15 gauge nail gun and nailed it to a 2x4 cap I screwed down. I then filled the nail holes and sanded and stained.

Ler0y Jenkins

Andy,

Yes, the 1x6 is what I was referring to. Thanks for the info. Again, it looks fantastic. 1000% better than before.

Kevin

Ler0y Jenkins

Andy,

One more question... how did you go about drilling the 5/8" holes in the bottom plate for the stair section that's slanted? I imagine it might be kind of hard to drill on an angle with the forstner bits. Any tips?

Kevin

BigJim

LerOy J if you look at this picture you will see the spindles are square at the top and bottom. This is a hampton style rail system, the bottom of the rail is plowed out and has a shoe on the bottom that is plowed out. Plowed means there is a recess in the bottom of the rail and shoe.

The hampton rail is the easiest of rails to install for me.

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Jim

Ler0y Jenkins

Jim,

Thanks for the response... I was actually thinking of doing that style of railling before I came across some pictures of the wood/wrought-iron style. I just really like the look of the wood railing with the wronght-iron spindles.

Kevin

BigJim

I agree with you, the rail with the wrought-iron spindles does look far better and up to date. That style rail is a little tougher but it is for sure doable with some instructions. You will want to be sure your posts are set firm and the rails connected by stair bolts as the spindles don't contribute much support to the system at all.

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Jim

prismfisher

Actually I took some of your photos to show our contractor as we have a split level that we are remodeling for resale / rental. We had already taken down the upper wall to open that space but the lower half wall will be coming down today in order to accomodate the look as well.

thanks for sharing.

titanoman

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