A Clear Idea

Well the time has finally come for the last posting on our remodel. After 11 months Mr. & Mrs. Remodel can hardly believe that they are done although the evidence is all around them.


Hold on. What’s that black line next to the stairs?

There comes a point in a remodel pursued with the permission of permits when you are ready for Mr. Inspector to sign off the job as finished. That doesn’t mean the whole job is complete, just the parts that he is interested in. Since we had reached that point quite a few weeks previously we thought we might as well bring him in and get that done.

We called up, made an appointment, and the following day Mr. Inspector came along to check all was well. As he was finishing his look round, he glanced at the open stairway area and casually asked: “What are you putting up there?” “Nothing,” said Mr. R. “We like the open look.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Inspector told us that we couldn’t do that because it was against the building code; someone might trip coming down and without a barrier to stop them they could be launched into the living room.

Oh… What do we do now?

The slightly less bad news was we didn’t have to have the whole area filled up as long as there was a barrier above the third step up. When you planned to have something completely open, not having to have it all closed isn’t seen as good news.

Well we thought about a railing. We thought about a wall. We didn’t like either idea. Then Mrs. R suggested glass. She’d often seen glass used as a barrier for stairways why not do something similar? We called Mr. Inspector. He said that was acceptable as long as the glass was a half-inch thick.

So we called South Coast Screen & Glass who had done our shower glass. And we called them and called them. We even called in to see them. No one would return our calls or make an appointment to come round to see the space. So we contacted Capistrano Valley Glass & Mirror who were more than happy to take on the job.

Although it was going to cost more, we decided that just having plain glass might look like it was something we had to do. Whereas if we had the glass etched, it would look like we meant it and it would become a piece of art.
We chose a bamboo design because it was near the bamboo art studio doors. Plus bamboo fitted the glass shape and the design they suggested was not cartoony like some of the other designs we saw that would otherwise have worked.

The black channel for the glass was fitted early on but we felt it was best that the glass be installed after the carpet was in.


Here it is while waiting for the glue to dry (limbo dancing anyone?)


Here is the design from the other (etched) side.


Clearly a winner.

Thank you dropping by and following along. I hope you enjoyed it or learnt something about remodeling or both. We must do this again sometime… or not.