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Renovating Design Dilemma

renovating open riser staircase

Jane Denchfield

3 years ago

We recently moved into a barn conversion with the staircase in the main sitting room. Like much of the woodwork, it's an awful fake/stained mahogany, the spindles and newell posts are not in keeping and are loose/dangerous in any case. We are thinking about just replacing the posts/spindles with something more modern/simple (fewer twiddly bits, as my husband would say) but not sure if we'd be better off just replacing the whole staircase. Our budget is fairly limited because we have a huge list of work to do, so reluctant to replace the staircase if we can get away with not doing so.

There is enough carpet left by the previous occupants to remove the carpet and replace once painting is done, but not in a position to carpet with something different as it matches the sitting room carpet. Any ideas for how/what we can do would be most welcome, including to the upright posts in the small wall under the half landing. Thanks!

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Comments (2)

Sonia
3 years ago
Do you know if the staircase was white, it would look so much better and be so much cheaper. You could paint the handrails a charcoal grey for a bit of contrast. Something like this
Jane Denchfield
Original Author
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
thanks, Sonia. I agree, and painting is probably what we'll do even if we replace spindles etc. They need work/replacing as they are loose, and pretty poor quality. Love the contrast banister and one option is to paint the stair risers in a charcoal or similar.
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