Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Iron Railing Revisited


You may remember my post about the iron railing that Steve and I designed and were having custom built by a welder for our quasi-French patio doors. I posted a while back about the problems we encountered with this project.

To refresh your memory, our welder went ahead and fabricated the railing without waiting for our final measurements and specs. I just don't get how even when you tell people over and over in so many words, "I'm picky and I want this done exactly to my specifications. I will be providing you with a to scale drawing to work off of," they still go ahead and do what they want and damn the consequences.

We are experiencing a similar phenomenon with our tub refinishing company and I'll do a separate post about that.

Today, Steve drove to the south side to see the railing in person. As it turns out, the railing looks quite good. It's just quite a bit taller than we wanted. We decided on about 41 inches high and he made it 44 inches. Three inches might not seem like a lot but proportion and scale are important and it is really a shame when we had something custom made that we should have to compromise.

Funnily enough, while Steve was at the guys shop, he heard him on the phone with an attorney talking about putting a lien on someone's property for an unpaid bill. ejem.

We are going to put some masking tape along the exterior where the railing would go to try and get an idea how it will look. I am more inclined to accept it as I want a railing real bad and it looks nice. Steve is more hard line in case you hadn't figured that one out yet.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Before you get all wild and crazy, you may want to check the code, I think that the requirement is at least 42 inches high from the surface of the floor, depending on how you are planning on mounting, you may need the extra height. I think it looks really good though.

Jocelyn said...

We think the code is 36". Are you in Chicago? We'll double check with our iron guy too.

Gary said...

Hang a window box over the edge. It should draw down the actual height of the railing or at least your perception of it.

Look at the bright side, it gives your tenants an extra 3" falling distance!