Restoring a period staircase

There are two very different jobs people both call a staircase makeover. One is to modernise an old stair, to update its look, which is its own page: how to modernise an old staircase. The other is the opposite: to restore a period staircase, to keep the original and put right what has been lost or damaged over a century or more. This page is about the second. If you have a good Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian stair, it is almost always worth restoring rather than ripping out, because the original joinery is usually better than anything that would replace it.

What we tend to find

Old stairs tell the story of what has been done to the house. The most common thing we find is not wear but wrong parts: a run of original turned balusters with a few plain square ones dropped in where the originals were broken or lost, or a section of nice moulded handrail replaced with a cheap modern length that breaks the line. A lot of this dates from the years when big houses were split into flats and bits of the stair were removed or boxed in. On top of that we see thickly painted-over detail that hides good mouldings, worn or split treads and nosings, loose joints and squeaks from a hundred years of use, and newels that have worked loose, which is a job to take seriously because on most stairs the newel is structural (see is a newel post structural). None of that means the stair is finished. It usually means it needs the right parts and honest repair, not replacement.

Matching the missing parts

The heart of a restoration is putting back what is gone so you cannot tell. Turned spindles can be copied from a surviving original: one good example is enough for a turner to reproduce the pattern and make up the shortfall in the same timber. Handrail sections and mouldings are matched to the existing profile, and a decorative feature bottom step or newel cap can be remade the same way. On grander period stairs the prize is the sweeping curved flight and its continuous wreathed handrail, which is the same geometric craft covered on the geometric staircase page, and where a break in the run has been patched with a clumsy joint, a skilled maker can put the flow back. Matching by template or photograph, in the right species, is what separates a restoration from a repair.

The rules, and listed buildings

Two things worth knowing before you start. First, building regulations are generally not retrospective: a genuine like-for-like repair, putting back what was there in the same form, usually does not trigger them. Changing the staircase, moving it, or altering the rise, going or headroom, can, so keep a restoration a restoration if you want to keep it simple. Second, and more important, if the building is listed, then listed building consent may be needed even for repairs, and doing work without it can be an offence. This is guidance, not legal advice, and the right first move on any listed or conservation-area property is a call to your local authority conservation officer before anything is touched. They would far rather have that conversation early than find out later.

Restore or modernise?

The honest question is which one the stair deserves. If it is a good period staircase with most of its original character intact, restore it: the joinery is usually finer than a replacement, and a well-restored period stair is one of the best features a house of that age can have. If the original is long gone, badly butchered, or was never anything special, then updating the look may make more sense, and that is the modernise route. What we would steer you away from is stripping out sound original joinery for the sake of a trend, because you cannot buy that quality back.