The Brief

This local seafront project was going to be a large one for us and a cold one as it needed fitting through December and January!

The new build seafront home had a front and rear-facing balcony that needed balustrading. One side was to have a paint finish spindle and newel posts whilst the seafront side needed to be all glass balustrade. This was so we didn’t take away from the gorgeous views across the coast.

However, it wasn’t just the balustrading for the balconies that was required it was also the two external staircases needed to access said areas with matching styles. The team had a lot to do!

Action taken

The design for the staircases was to be a paint finish for all wooden surfaces so we used the hardwood, sapele, which lends itself perfectly to a long-lasting option for external paint finish joinery.

The client wanted the stair treads to be made from the same composite decking boards they had on the balconies so that the style flowed throughout. Therefore we got to work on testing methods for joining/glueing the decking planks together to help us see how to use it and work with it.

Once the staircases and landings were made and pre-assembled in our workshops, the next step was to head to the client’s home to begin fitting.

The staircase was fitted on A4 marine grade steel supports to keep the timber elements such as newel posts away from the damp and dirty floor. The seafront balcony glass was fitted using an aluminium channel bolted to the floor which held the glass in place meaning there was no need for newel posts to obstruct the views.

Outcome

The project is now complete for us! You can see the finished product by watching the video below.

Timber supplier – Covers Chichester – https://www.coversmerchants.co.uk

Steel supplier – S-FABS – https://www.southernfabricationssussex.co.uk

Glass supplier – TuffX Glass –  https://www.tuffxglass.co.uk

Glass Hardware supplier – Q Railing UK – https://www.q-railing.com/en-gb/