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 final arrangement of all the parts…



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 Style Newel Post Video

Russell Hudson / Hudson Cabinetmaking, Inc.

[Window Guy]

Wow that is beautiful, great job. Almost makes me want another 2 story home, but my knees say no.



Steve

[WoodTinker]

In the first drawing, is that a table saw insert on the top right?


When I got down to the A/B/C drawings my eyes went directly to C as the most pleasing and low in behold that was the one you went with.

How did you attach the ball - large dowel in the bottom?

[Gary G™]

Looks real nice; always enjoy seeing your projects.

[Wild Turkey]

How did you attach the ball - large dowel in the bottom?

That was my question -- how is it going to stand up to several generations of "attention"?

Beautiful work.