Let's try Iron Railings...

We finally finished painting the kitchen and family room this week and now have a couple of days of downtime while we are waiting on the final shipments to arrive. All that remains before I can start the before/after photoshoot is the pecan counter, sliding glass door, the basement door, counter stools, the correct doors for the cabinet above the beverage center, and the hardware for the ceiling light. Those should be trickling in over the next month - so we should be wrapping up in September.

In the mean time, my Deepcreek railing project is underway. When the floors were replaced last year, the 4x4 load bearing beams got a little torn up in the process. I basically had two options... 1. replace the beams, or 2. wrap the beams to create a fresh outward appearance. Since the beams are tied into the structure itself, that chore seemed like a little more than I wanted to bite off with the kitchen going on and all. So I decided to wrap them.

The picture below has a montage of before and how I did the wrap. The leftmost image is what I started with - some pretty old 4x4s with rips and holes all over it. The second image reviews how I did the wrap... I used a 4x8 sheet of 1/4 thick red oak plywood, cut 4"x8" strips with the edges at a 45 degree angle, then used PL375 as the adhesive. The far right image is how I attached the wrap - just a bunch of painter's tape using elmers wood glue for the 45 degree cuts to make a seemless edge.




The images below are the taped up job on the left and the final product on the right...



What I did was actually create what appears to be 4x4 solid oak support beams. The PL375 when mooshed against the original 4x4 created the solid feel when you tap against the wood.

Now that the support beams are complete, I'm going to do the oak railing and iron pickets using a style like this...


Iron railings will be a first for me, but you have to start somewhere!!!