Staircases in St Clair, MI

The failures are predictable after a hundred and forty years. Balusters break or go missing and get replaced with whatever was available, so a run often has three or four different patterns in it. Newel posts loosen where the original bolt has worked free. Handrails come apart at the ramp and easing where the sections were joined. Treads wear through in the centre and squeak against the risers. All of this is repairable, and repairing it is both cheaper and better than replacing a balustrade that cannot be bought again. We turn replacement balusters to match a surviving original so a run reads as one set, re-anchor newels properly rather than gluing them, remake handrail joints where they have opened, and repair or replace individual treads while keeping the original stringer and skirting. Where a stair has already been badly modernised — a period balustrade removed and a stock rail fitted in the seventies — we can build a replacement in the correct register for the house, taking the pattern from photographs or from surviving detail elsewhere in the building.

We assess the stair before quoting, and we quote the repair where a repair will do. Turning and joinery are done at our Chesterfield shop and matched to the original pattern.

St Clair is about twenty-one miles from our Chesterfield shop, well inside the area we cover along the river.