apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

So much more modern and open after! It looks like they just changed the flooring and the banister/rails... the stairs themselves seem (structurally) unchanged...

Looks Awesome!

looks great. the tops of the stairs look beautiful against all that white. The banister is a little cold and office-building-like for my taste, but completes the modern look intended, I imagine.

Now it kind of looks like the queue at a theme park.

Dont really dig the industrial stuff mixed with the natural wood floors.

I do like the white baseboards with the dark brown stairs though. Classy look.

While I love the look of the "after" railing, I don't think it really fits with the character of the house (what little I can see of it). The first railing seemed to make a lot more sense in context.

Unless you can show me photo-evidence to convince me otherwise :)

For a "Home-Store Colonial/Farmhouse" stairway - I didn't think the first one was too bad...

...but as much as I like the replacement clean wooden treads, the rail looks a bit "Home-Store-Loft" to me - I would have liked to have seen a more interesting/unique bannister treatment with wooden rails.

Looks great! I think it could transition well in a lot of styles.

You've got to do what you've got to do.

Much better in my opinion.

I have a feeling this owner has a much bigger plan than just the stairway.

It's interesting how the old baseboards were pretty square and not "curvy" like traditional baseboards. The latter would have gone better with the old stair well. But no worries because it goes even better with the new stair well.

We're looking to do something similar. Where do you get banister/rails like this? Is it a DIY job or do you have to hire a specialist?

DF

The old stairs look like a fairly contemporary faux-heritage reproduction, and not with very high quality finials and moldings - I'd have updated it too,. I really like the combination of steel and wood. Also, I would guess that most of the staircase was retained (at least the stringers and risers were) and only the treads were removed and either replaced or re-cut. The reason for that would be that the old bannister was anchored on every stair, not every fourth stair as the new steel bannister is, and therefore the old treads would have numerous holes that might be hard to fill. I think this is a great solution - it looks great, and there isn't a lot of material waste.

The newer version is just delicious. And although it's modern, I think that it's not a flavor of modern that will become dated all that quickly. Some things seem to look very much like a particular month of a particular year, but I don't think this ever will.

I like after, better.

I like the idea, but I would have used a wooden banister with the wires, instead.

This seriously yells "office building" to me. I think it's better, but wish there was something between the former and the latter designs which didn't make me think of going to work or the dentist's office.