Heavy Metal

Our railing fabricator Geoff came to our house Saturday morning to start work on our custom steel railing. I have wanted a metal railing like this forEVER and was excited to see it take shape. It adds a little bit of a rough, hard, cold, industrial element to all of the light colors and natural wood we've already got in the house, and it also ties into the steel beams in the kitchen and hallway. I'm already in love with it.

He started at the very top and first added a metal rim to the edge of the loft area which finished off the pine beetle wood flooring that was put down last weekend. It just so happened that we were all three standing in the living room looking at that area at the top of the stairs, and I asked Curt how he was going to finish the side where you could see the edges of the PBK above drywall. Geoff happened to have an extra piece of metal that was just the right length to make a cool edge that was bolted down. Then he built the railing for that top part in two different pieces, attached them, and started on the longest part. That also had to be built in two pieces and attached before he started in the lower rail. A few times, he actually took apart pieces he'd finished to tweak them or fix an angle, so his attention to detail should result in a pretty perfect and up-to-code railing. He did a bunch of work in the garage and then brought some of his tools inside to use in place. That was probably a lot easier because he had to go up and down two flights of stairs all day both days. No easy feat a mile high in Denver, but even worse at 11,500 feet.

He was almost finished when we left last night but still needed to do the lowest part of the railing as well as add the handrail to the stairs going to the basement.

Geoff was another craigslist find and not only was his estimate less than half of the others we received - which were between $4000 and $5000 and nowhere near in our paltry budget - but he even sent us a sample of his work which totally won us over. It was exactly what we were looking for! If he has time, he is going to add a towel bar to the bottom of the concrete countertop in our master bathroom. I also want him to add small metal posts at either end of our bowling lane counter because it overhangs so far from the cabinets that it needs some extra support that even brackets or corbels wouldn't provide. He may have to come up another time to do that though. We promised him hot water and a shower because he spent Saturday night with us, but unfortunately on Saturday, the pump in our well had some issues and we didn't get water back until Sunday afternoon. No water and definitely no hot water. He went to bed coated in a layer of black grime. Hopefully it wasn't too terrible, and we weren't much cleaner. We go to bed every weekend coated in layers of dirt. No big deal!