Yes, you will. So in the meantime, since you’re not going to do anything right now to change anything, maybe go enjoy the rest of the Thanksgiving weekend, and stop thinking about it!
Haha… Even though the main crew has the holidays off I have scheduled several jobs that need to get done while noone else is traipsing through the house.
The flooring guy has spent the entire week meticulously working on the walnut staircade. $1,550 just for the materials and he cut me a break at only $1,200 for all the labor. Luckily he has worked here all week because, obviously, he has no other jobs putting in floors at a homeowner house in the middle of Thanksgiving. That’s why he was so busy early November. Everyone wants new floor in before the holidays:)
He has cut each piece of walnut tread and then he created a custom cut for the big diagonals and joined them to a solid piece down in the garage. Then days of sanding and poly layers. He’s going to do 4 coats on the stairs. Today is the magic day they get installed.
He’s also working on the oak landing at bottom of garage stairs because it needed special goo stuff to go down on concrete and he has to poly the layers when no workers are here to accidentally step on it
There’s another crew here installing carpet. I know, I know…everyone hates carpet. But our target is a family (even though only couples have come through looking for big garages). My agent said it would be fine to have carpet in kid’s rooms. It’s a high quality nylon with low pile square pattern with extra thick pad in a forgiving color. If a buyer hates carpet they only have 2 bedrooms to deal with. In one case I had a buyer negotiate to have wood floors installed in escrow and I can deal with it later
may I suggest you only have the LR, DR and master BD staged and skip the rest of the house? Perhaps that will save your realtor $$
Or do a “less is more” staging with a sitting area in the FR and the LR, and bed and night stand in the bedrooms with nice linens. Table and chairs in the DR (but NOT those awful ones!).
I loaded some photos of our progress today.
I have compromised with my agent to do a three phase staging approach. We are going to find the very best staging company with the perfect style and pay big bucks for the living room, dining room, possibly the master bedroom and living room deck. I am going to clear out my house of my large patio seating set and my family room furniture (which was used to stage the Hoarder House living room) to stage the family room upstairs and augment living room deck staging. Then we are going to hire the least expensive staging company to just fill in the bedrooms and office. Should be an interesting holiday season at my personal home without any of our patio furniture and family room furniture… since we usually have a lot of guests 
We are meeting 2 more staging companies at the house tommorrow/Sunday.
Beautiful stairs! Will there be a handrail?
Oh, cb, that walnut is gorgeous!! Those stairs are magnificent, and the light is perfect. I love it all.
Yes. I am deciding between walnut handrail or wrought iron handrail. It will be one of the last things we install because everyone is still banging up and down the stairs
Please do walnut. A long while ago you posted a house on another thread…and the tackiest thing about it was wrought iron stair rails. The rich look of the walnut would be nicer, in my opinion.
Gorgeous stairs! Wrought iron could also be lovely. Either way, I’d want a handrail that’s comfortable to slide your hand along.
Why is one stair lighter than the others?
It’s just the nature of the wood. All kinds of different colors going on in the wood. I noticed that also but decided that he would kill me for being picky after he did all that work
Wrought Iron railing would be true to the period of the house but it is going to be difficult to find pieces that are the exact length required without having to hire someone to make a custom hand rail. I think it would be more important for style if there was an open side with ballusters, but it may not be a big issue if there is just a handrail going along the wall. I can get walnut handrail pieces pre-made and cut to the length required… for a price of course!
The handrail is not an important feature of the house because it is not seen from the entry, living room, dining room, etc. It’s not like the staircase is a big feature as you enter the house, as it is in a lot of homes. The handrail down to garage is just going to be very functional.
In that case, maybe just oak stained to match?
Doesn’t the walnut staircase go to the nice upper level? I would want that one to be nice walnut stained hand rail.
The one to the garage? To me, that is a utility staircase. Agree…just get something functional. Stained oak to match the stair treads would be nice.
I think a simple wrought iron handrail would look best in the stairwell. It would be most consistent with the style of the house, and is what would have been used if the staircase had been original to the house.
The stained wood handrail will make the staircase read as part of an addition, which is exactly what you should be trying to avoid, in my opinion.
I’m guessing a public staircase original to this style of house would not have been enclosed, but rather open to the living room. Those are the staircases with the beautiful open wrought iron balusters. Attached handrails would most likely only be seen on service stairs. Attached iron handrails seem to sometimes be used with Spanish tile steps. So a beautiful walnut wooden handrail would be appropriate. Or possibly the very dark brown/black of all the window trim.
Is there wrought iron anywhere else in the architecture of the house?
I assume code requires a rail. But either way it seems a good idea for safety son slick wood steps, especially when in homeowneres are in socks (or house viewers are in socks or paper booties like we have at local open houses.)
I think wrought iron or walnut could look nice. I true cb’s good eye to pick the best choice.
There is not any other obvious wrought iron in the house
Walnut handrails are going to be expensive I think. First I have to get the raw walnut handrails and then they have to be finished with 3-4 coats of sealant. It would go with the stairs and the countertop piece in the kitchen
My personal opinion is that wrought iron would add more architectural flair to the house, especially with curved ends that would match the lighting and other curves in the house
What about painting the handrail out to match the walls? I like wrought iron for Santa Barbara style but I went in a friends home today in Montecito that was recently bought for over 2.5 million and her handrails are all wood and white. It looked nice and they just blend into the wall.