Just looking to canvass opinion. I'm in the process of fitting a new stair balustrade - which is made of Richard Burbidge Elements range - using white oak newels/hand/base rails, and plain black metal spindles to give a minimalist look, similar to this.
The existing landing balustrade had a half newel before I removed it and made good the wall surface, so I got a half newel to terminate the new balustrade too. However, I've hit a couple of problems.
1. Firstly, the adjacent plaster board surface is slightly out, which draws your eye to the taper as you're walking down stairs because there is less than 10mm visible to the front. I have a choice of tolerating this (perhaps I'm being overly critical...), or simply fixing the half-newel slightly out of plumb, and the handrail to it slightly off centre. That door frame to the left is as straight as a dogs hind leg too, so the latter won't be noticed.
2. There is a pronounced bulge in the wall I'm fixing it to, where they have obviously been a bit careless with the plasterboard edging and finishing when the house was built. The gap is too large to fill without it looking naff, so the only decent solution to this will be to recess the half newel slightly into the plasterboard.
However, I did have another thought which was to ditch the half-newel entirely and just fix the handrail very securely to the wall. I just wondered if anyone had gone this route for similar reasons as nearly all library photos online tend to show a half-newel on the landing so I'm struggling to judge whether it would look odd if I didn't put one in.
Any thoughts appreciated!
The existing landing balustrade had a half newel before I removed it and made good the wall surface, so I got a half newel to terminate the new balustrade too. However, I've hit a couple of problems.
1. Firstly, the adjacent plaster board surface is slightly out, which draws your eye to the taper as you're walking down stairs because there is less than 10mm visible to the front. I have a choice of tolerating this (perhaps I'm being overly critical...), or simply fixing the half-newel slightly out of plumb, and the handrail to it slightly off centre. That door frame to the left is as straight as a dogs hind leg too, so the latter won't be noticed.
2. There is a pronounced bulge in the wall I'm fixing it to, where they have obviously been a bit careless with the plasterboard edging and finishing when the house was built. The gap is too large to fill without it looking naff, so the only decent solution to this will be to recess the half newel slightly into the plasterboard.
However, I did have another thought which was to ditch the half-newel entirely and just fix the handrail very securely to the wall. I just wondered if anyone had gone this route for similar reasons as nearly all library photos online tend to show a half-newel on the landing so I'm struggling to judge whether it would look odd if I didn't put one in.
Any thoughts appreciated!
