Imagine this: A couple in the Philadelphia area owns a beautiful house, but it was missing just one thing. A beautiful railing for their stair off of the patio! What can they do? They feel like they are missing a big part of their home…so, they chose us to create a realistic natural branch railing. How did it turn out? Hear it from the client themselves: “We are delighted with what Amos and his team have created for us. We see it each day from our kitchen table, and remark on its beauty.”
Design elements:
The stair treads and landings were done in a beautiful bluestone. Chester County stone was chosen to cover the faces. What a lovely pairing! This couple’s desire was to have a very organic and artistic feel, so the normal stair railing’s were deemed unacceptable. They searched for an artistic railing design and landed on a realistic natural branch railing design as a way of expressing their artistic vision. An excellent choice and perfect fit for this lovely couple.
For their artistic rail, they desired the tree to look like it was growing out of the back of the stair landing. Our goal was to make it look like it grew from the back of the landing, grow forward and then down the stairs and back into the bottom tread. It was complete with branches, twigs and leaves growing out of it for a very natural effect.
Additionally, the client requested to have twigs grow out of the treads and landing on both ends of the stair. This really brought the whole piece together! We drew our inspiration from the beauty of a Japanese maple tree.
Lastly, due to a mix up in design vision, there were two handrails built for the stair, where there was only a need for one. This turned out to be a wonderful mix up, as the “extra” handrail was able to be installed along some stone steps that lead down to a pond in the client’s back yard. The natural handrail was exactly what was needed!
How its made:
First, we tapered all the trunks and branches for life-like growth. Then, we forged naturalistic veins into each individual twig and leaf. Once we forged and created the entire artistic railing, we sandblasted it and hot dip galvanized it for corrosion protection. This als0 provided a realistic texture to the railing. Next we sand blasted for better adhesion, and applied a special black patina finish. This brought the already beautiful piece to life!
We hand glided the leaves a unique red color for the ultimate visual effect. Next, we applied a dappled effect, and coated the entire project with a clear resilient sealer. We core drilled each piece and epoxied them into the masonry. To finish it off, we mixed blue stone masonry powder into the epoxy to provide visual contact continuity.
