DIY wire railings for the stairs-part 1






As you remember on my pics for the homemade baby gate, my stairs had the traditional wood stairs, stained by the previous owner in shinny cherry color. Very nice but it doesn't go together with our decor. So we went in a two fold project. First part was the semi-hallway to Isabella's room. Originally we wanted to go with 1/8" steel wire for this section but I needed to reinforce from the other side of the wall, so the tension of the cables won't rip the drywall apart. So we decided to take the tempered glass route. I got a 3/8 aluminum rail for the bottom and 2 "U" shaped rails for the top so I was able to sandwich the glass between these two. The glass is a clear, 3/8" tempered glass. We are so happy with the results. Lot's of clarity and makes the space to look bigger, cleaner... before we had to place white panels to avoid Isabella from falling down... (see old pics) As a side bonus, the glass reflects a window on the opposite wall...

added pics of the turnbuckles and loop holders (all sourced from homedepot) for Kara:







Joel is a contributor on Design-Milk's weekly architectural posts and Apartment Therapy's Unplggd daily technology posts.