On the Rails

Anyone who has been over to our house has noticed what we affectionately call "The Cliff." It's the four foot drop from the kitchen to the den. When we moved in there was a rail there, but we removed it to put in the new fridge. The rail was in TERRIBLE shape. I'm not even sure we needed tools to take it down.

I finally got around to putting in a new rail. I'm am quite pleased with the results.

"The Cliff" Before

 
Remnants of the old railing. It's not even installed on a level surface. It's also painted orangeish.

The first thing I had to do was set the newel post. There were two options for setting it to the floor. One involved a 12" spike that is supposed to attach to the supports underneath. Because of the strange outcropping and bumped up floor this wasn't going to work. Instead I bracketed the post to the floor and used a special molding to cover up the hardware.

Then I set all of the balusters into the floor using dowel screws. I measured, drilled, and then twisted them into the floor.

By far the most difficult part involved the half-newel, the one that attaches to the wall. Because the post had to be attached to the rail as well as the wall we had some finagling to do. While I did most of this project myself, I needed Jeremy for this part. To bolt the rail to the post Jeremy held the rail with a death grip and I used the socket wrench to screw it on. After wrestling with it for a while we finally got it attached. Then I was able to attach the post to the wall, which was FAR easier. After that setting the rail in place and bolting it to the freestanding newel went fast.

Check out the finished product!

Also, Mama's new socket set...