Looking down from the head of the flight over the finished landing balustrade of white posts with timber caps, oak handrails and clear glass panels, with the hall floor visible below.

Horsham

Glass and oak stair balustrade, Horsham

A dark timber and metalwork balustrade replaced through the flight and the landing with white newel posts, oak rails and clear glass, and the space under the stairs fitted out.

Town: Horsham

The old balustrade came out and a new one went in around the same stairwell. White-painted newel posts, oak handrails and oak base rails, and clear glass panels where the scrolled metalwork had been. The space under the flight, which had been open floor, was fitted out with cupboards and shelving.

What changed and what did not

The stair still runs the same way through the house. Same flight, same landing turning the same corner, same window at the head of it. What changed is everything standing on top of it, from the newel posts up.

That is the useful thing to know about this kind of job. Replacing a balustrade is not a decorating change. It is taking out the guard and putting a new one back, and the posts are the part that does the work.

Why glass is the unforgiving material on a stair

Every other part of a stair can be argued with at the last minute. A handrail can be planed. A post can be scribed to a wall that leans. A base rail can be trimmed on site until it sits.

Glass for a balustrade cannot. It is processed to its finished size, and after that it cannot be cut, drilled or eased. So the setting out has to be finished before any glass is ordered, and the sizes have to come off the posts as they actually stand, not off a drawing of where they were meant to stand.

The raking run is harder again. Those panels are not rectangles. They are cut to the pitch of the stair, and a real stair’s pitch is whatever it is rather than a round number off a page. Where the rake meets the level landing the shapes change once more. Measured wrong, a panel is not adjusted — it is reordered.

Under the stairs

The cupboard doors run in one level line along the bottom, with the door at the low end cut to follow the rake. The open shelving above follows the same diagonal, so the compartments change shape as the stair drops and the divisions have to be set out to look deliberate rather than left over. There are no handles, so the run reads as a wall until it is opened.

Light through the stairwell

The old guarding was a dark frame with metalwork filling it. Glass leaves the stairwell open, and the hall and the landing now borrow light from each other.

How it went in

01

Before

The stair as it was: dark stained timber posts and rails with black scrolled metalwork filling the panels, and the space under the flight left to freestanding furniture. The whole guarding came out.

Looking down onto the old landing balustrade of dark stained timber posts and handrails filled with black metal balusters and scroll panels, turning the corner around the stairwell. — Dark timber and scrolled metalwork

The same balustrade seen from the landing floor, a long dark timber run with black metal balusters and scroll panels, returning at each end around the stairwell opening. — The landing run, before

The flight seen from the hall, with a dark stained raking handrail and string, black metal balusters and scroll panels, a square newel post at the foot, and a freestanding cupboard in the open space beneath the stairs. — The flight, and the open space beneath

02

The landing

The landing run rebuilt in white newel posts with oak caps, oak handrails and oak base rails, with clear glass held between them. The glass runs post to post and sits down into the base rail on the carpet.

Looking down from the head of the flight over the finished landing balustrade, white posts and oak handrails with clear glass panels between, the hall floor visible below. — Looking down from the head of the stairs

The finished landing balustrade from floor level, white posts with oak caps carrying an oak handrail over clear glass panels, turning the corner with the flight dropping away beyond. — Posts, oak rails, glass between

The glass and oak balustrade running around the stairwell opening, the glass panels seated in an oak base rail laid on the carpet. — The run around the void

03

The flight, and under it

The raking run and the fitted storage beneath. On the flight the glass is cut to the pitch of the stair rather than square, and the shelving under it is set out to the same diagonal.

The whole finished flight seen from the hall, a white string with an oak base rail and handrail raking up over clear glass, a second timber rail fixed to the wall above, and white fitted shelving and cupboards under the stairs. — The whole flight from the hall

Fitted storage under the stairs: a level run of handleless white cupboard doors along the bottom, the end one cut to the rake, with open shelving above following the diagonal. — Cupboards level, shelves on the rake

Looking up the carpeted flight from the foot of the stairs, the oak handrail rising over glass on the open side and the landing balustrade crossing above. — Looking up from the foot

This project involved bespoke fitted furniture. See more work across West Sussex.

Related work

A run of built-in wardrobes with dark charcoal sliding doors, the left-hand bay slid open to show two lit hanging sections, with a mirrored door and a dark door closed alongside.

Charcoal sliding-door wardrobes, Horsham

Horsham

A wall of old plank-door built-ins replaced with three sliding doors, one of them mirrored, over three bays fitted out with hanging, drawers, shelves, pull-down rails and lights.