Wooden Staircase Designs - Remodel

[Russell Hudson]

We have been slowly remodeling the woodwork (one project at a time) in their home to reflect Mission style architecture. The look of a staircase's newel post is very important when thinking about wooden staircase designs.
Here is the old staircase we were to replace. The newel post is rather small and lacking any detail... and the spindles (called balusters) are turned which is not the look we wanted.



I began sketching thoughts to see what our client would react to…





After more drawings than I could even count (20?), we decided we wanted a wooden ball (sphere) to cap the top…





and here is how we’d design the faces on the post’s four sides (the one on the right)…





Now it’s time to make our newel post. We wanted a strong post so I designed it as 8” X 8”. It was really a box (with four sides) and here you see I’ve cut out windows and routed three, large vertical flutes on each face… and then glued them together…








Here you see the wood ball receiving a bolt to firmly attach it to the top and final arrangement of all the parts…





…. and here it is put together (before staining))





here is the wood ball cap, the column beneath as well as the stair railing spindles (and some brackets we were making to support the beam and column wraps we also did for them)…





Installation had to be rock solid as people rely on this post for support so the post was screwed to the front riser, the side stringer and to the step itself…





And here you see the finished balustrade as a still shot and a 14 second video





Mission Newel Post Video

[Jamie Buxton]

Nice!
But when I think of Mission, I think of white oak, and it looks to me that you used poplar. What was your thinking there?

[Jim Dwight]

I like the design of the post but not the simple ballisters. I would have used oak for the post. But if it's for a client, I guess you use what they want.