Staircase railings, balusters and balcony fronts

A staircase is the worst possible place for things to almost match. You walk up it looking straight along the run, so forty balusters are presented to you side by side in a row - and if three of them are a few millimetres off, that is the condition under which the eye catches it every single time. Turned one at a time by hand over several weeks, they drift. Cut in one batch from one drawing, they do not.

That is most of the argument for doing stair work on a machine. The profile, the length, the shoulder where the baluster meets the rail: set once, cut for the whole flight. Then the handrail, the newel posts, the stringer face and the landing front are drawn to match, so the stair reads as one piece of joinery rather than as parts bought in at different times.

Not every stair wants balusters. A pierced panel - a jaali, a tracery screen, a run of ornament - set into the balustrade instead makes the stair much lighter in a narrow Kerala hall, and lets light through from the landing window. We make both, and the same drawing carries on to the balcony and verandah fronts so the whole house agrees with itself. Every stair is measured on site first; the drawing is never trusted on its own.