Tip 1
Staircases and the accompanying balustrade are usually an integral and defining component of the styling of your home. More often than not the staircase occupies a prominent position in the home and attention to
detail early in the planning process is essential if the best outcome is to be achieved
Tip 2
Winder steps. Space dictates the need to have winder steps in a staircase. If you can afford the space, landings in lieu of winders would be preferable to most people.
Tip 3
Hang on. Whilst it is not a regulatory requirement to have a handrail on the stair in all situations, it is preferable.
Tip 4
Disaster waiting to happen. Balustrade heights are set at one metre above first floor level for safety reasons. If you have an open area at the top of your stair designed for use as a TV or recreation area for children, make sure that there is ample room for sofas other than against the first floor balustrade, because they become a springboard to potential disaster.
Tip 5
It’s a long way to the top. Try where possible to avoid extremely long stair flights. They are for some people extremely intimidating when standing at the top looking down, and whilst not necessarily the cause of accidents, long flights tend to cause more serious injuries should an accident occur, for obvious reasons.
Tip 6
Stair generosity. Encourage your architect or designer to be generous when allocating space for the staircase. A few centimetres here and there can make an enormous difference in the walking comfort of the stair. Again it pays to speak to the manufacturer early in the process.
Tip 7
Plan. plan, plan. Careful planning of the staircase and the void allocated to incorporate the stair is vital. It’s never too soon to involve the stair manufacturer in the planning process. Early involvement achieves a better result for the consumer every time.
Tip 8
When an architect or designer dimensions the stairwell at say one metre in width for a straight flight staircase, the end result will never be a one metre clear width staircase; it will be up to 150mm less than that. Constraints such as handrail finger room and balustrade on the upper level always restrict the clear width. Again planning is the best defence against disappointment.
Tip 9
If changes are required to the stairwell, which is the case probably fifty percent of the time, it’s a lot easier and cheaper to change things earlier than later on in the process.
Tip 10
Check with the experts. If you are choosing a geometric (curved) stair and you wish it to be devoid of obvious support (floating), check with the stair manufacturer rather than accept the designer’s guarantees.
Tip 11
Horses for courses. If you are unsure about what style of stair best suits your period of home ask us for advice. We can design and make an authentic Federation staircase to suit a Federation home and the same goes for all recognised periods of architecture.
Tip 12
Colour variation disclaimer. Timber is a natural product and one of the qualities of most natural products is colour variation between individual pieces. Whilst we can attempt to colour match, it’s impossible to achieve a perfect match, there will always be colour variation in varying degrees depending on the timber species.
Tip 13
Parents often request that we provide gates at the top and bottom of a staircase to prevent young children and crawling babies from falling down stairs or getting up them in the first place. Children will generally be drawn to a staircase because of its ‘playground’ like possibilities and whilst we’d never like to see your progeny take a fall, it’s amazing how fast they learn new skills when required. We find that adults are more vulnerable in and around the stair. There are products available that form a temporary barrier at the stair’s entrance. These are not expensive and provide the necessary protection for the short time that it is required. It’s preferable to having a permanent fixture in the form of a gate that damages the beautiful work in the hanging process and looks out of place.
Tip 14
A continuous handrail is handrail that does not stop and start at a newel post or where the stair changes direction, but continues in smooth curves from the bottom of the stair to the top. This handrail allows you to run your hand all the way along as you walk up or down the stair. Continuous handrailing techniques can be applied to staircases that have straight flights and to Geometric staircases
Tip 15
Continuous handrailing is as much an art form as technique of producing a barrier. It is particularly important to seek advice should your stair require continuous hand railing. This type of handrail design and construction is extremely technical and the result totally dependent on the knowledge and expertise of the maker. The line of the handrail is critical when creating a timeless feature staircase and without this attention to harmony between the staircase and balustrading the whole focal point can fail.
Tip 16
In its purest form continuous handrail is still honed from solid laminated blocks of timber using planes, moulding planes, spoke-shaves and gouges and these days a few electric tools and of course a lot of sandpaper.
Interestingly, the fundamental method of handrail construction hasn’t changed for hundreds of years. Certainly machinery has made construction faster but the actual method hasn’t changed much at all.
Tip 17
A handrail should flow with clean lines and allow a user to descend a staircase without having to remove their hand. The continuous handrail has a place in both traditional and contemporary design. While contemporary rail patterns tend to be less detailed and smaller than traditional rails the principles remain the same. It is easy to fall in love with this art form. The natural beauty and warmth of timber, the names of components and
terminology used in the art form are enduring. The unique language used in handrailing is timeless, wreaths, twisting wreaths, scrolls, ramps, swan necks, rollover scrolls, level scrolls, climbing well rails, landing wreaths, springing points and radius points. To watch the true craftsman work with such devotion is inspiring and, in this day and age, it is comforting.
Tip 18
Riser positions, the size of handrails, the line of best fit between the riser lines, position of balusters, internal and external radius, are all consideration for the craftsman, while constantly considering not exposing the wreathing components to short gain. Over use of short gain can greatly weaken the rail at points where it requires the greatest strength.
Tip 19
Handrailing is unfortunately a dying art. Slattery & Acquroff is possibly the only company left in this country prepared to spend the time and money to ensure that the art doesn’t die out altogether. With the introduction of
more socially responsible building standards that require continuous handholds thus allowing better and safer access to buildings for the disabled and visually impaired the importance of the craft of handrailing has never been greater. Our handrailing expert and custodian is Grant McGeachin. Grant has worked with Slattery & Acquroff for nearly 30 years. He learnt his craft off Bruno Venus, a German post war migrant (whose father, son and
grandson all worked for S&A and the latter two still do) with wonderful woodworking skills. Bruno had learnt the craft from one of the company’s founders Alex Acquroff, who was considered to be ‘the best’. Alex had completed his staircase apprenticeship in Edinburgh before migrating to Australia in about 1911. With our aging population the need for these rails and craftsman’s such as Grant to create them will only increase.
Tip 20
Finishing the job. The decision to either paint or polish a staircase is an important one. As a rule of thumb most traditional stairs are stained and polished or clear finished, as are contemporary (modern) stairs. It’s the middle of the range stairs that tend to be painted or a combination of painting and polishing. When there is a lot of timber work exposed in the house such as dark timber floors and fixtures and fittings, sometimes the stair is better defined if it contains lighter colours in subtle contrast to the timber. Contemporary stairs seem to achieve this with the aid of stainless steel, glass and other contrasting materials. The Georgian era usually had painted risers and stringers, polished treads, painted timber turned balusters and polished handrail.
Unlike other timber in the house, stairs tend to be more defined as furniture than floors or doors for instance. From that stand point we believe it’s important that more time and effort is spent on the finishing of the stair, particularly the handrail. The handrail is something that’s constantly used, the hand is automatically drawn to it so even more attention needs to be paid to that. Experience shows us that it doesn’t matter how much time and effort, craftsmanship and skill goes in to making the stair, if similar time and effort doesn’t go into the finishing of the timber then our time and your money have been wasted. It is also of utmost importance to get at least one or two coats on the stair as soon as installation is complete. This prevents grit and dust becoming ingrained into the timber through use by trade’s people after we have completed our job French polishing is a most beautiful finish that can be applied to a staircase or more particularly a handrail. It has a rich lustre and is soft to the touch, it even has a pleasant earthy smell. While French polishing is not as hard as other products, it tends to improve with age rather than the other way around. It can also be easily rebuffed and repaired if necessary unlike polyurethane.
