Building a Handrail

THE RAVENNA HOUSE When we first bought the Ravenna House, the basement stairs were downright dangerous - every step was a different size and the treads were broken and mangled. The riser heights varied between 4" and 8". (For those of you who haven't had to rebuild a staircase, the treads are the horizontal pieces you step on and the risers are the vertical pieces.) And I'm not sure an agile monkey could have made their way down those things in the dark. So we rebuilt them. And then we built a new handrail.

I found a few photos of the handrail progress this week and thought it would be fun to share it with you guys. Here's a little montage of the construction:

And before you die of curiosity over that wall, let me just tell you that it's polished concrete. And it's glorious. It's Garrett favorite DIY project at the Ravenna House and it's smooth as butter. It's fun for kids to bounce balls off of. And to count the rocks in the concrete...if you're into that kind of thing.

We bought all the supplies for the handrail at Dunn Lumber (our local lumber store). We used red oak handrails on both sides (to match the treads and upstairs flooring) and paint-grade balusters on the open side. The stair risers and treads came from Uncle Dougie over at Hardwood Industries.