# Laminate wood flooring around stair railing



## handy andy (Feb 25, 2011)

I would install the laminate around the railing base, then mill a 2 piece hardwood cap and install it on top. The cap would be stained to match the laminate. You may be able to use the same material that you use for the stail nosing. The reason for the 2 piece cap is to fit around the upright.

By the way, the base of the stair railing looks rather rough. Is it all the same? Do you plan to pretty it up?


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## Murphys (Apr 3, 2011)

Thanks for the advice! (And yes, it did look pretty rough, but we had just finished pulling up all the carpeting and tearing up all the tacks that were holding it down. And the railing itself will soon be painted back to its original white. It already looks much better!


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## tcleve4911 (Nov 6, 2010)

It looks like you can unbolt the railing, slip the laminate underneath, pre-drill the laminate and then bolt the railing back down.

This would look a lot better than scabs of wood trying to cover a detail.


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## Murphys (Apr 3, 2011)

We thought of that too... but since this railing doesn't end here (it makes a turn and goes up our MANY flights up stairs), we can't lift it up and put the laminate under it.  We wish!


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## tcleve4911 (Nov 6, 2010)

Sorry....can't is not in my vocabulary.

Why not?
Have you tried?


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## Murphys (Apr 3, 2011)

We don't want to try lifting the railing because doing so would require us to lift it in all the places it is attached going all the way up our 5 staircases or else it would sit crooked if we just lifted the one area. That is a much bigger project than we are wanting to take on just now since it would mean moving the entire railing, painting the walls anywhere that it used to be attached, etc... It's just not something we WANT to do.

The only thing we are looking for is a solution for covering the bottom of railing. We do not want to replace or move the railing.


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## tcleve4911 (Nov 6, 2010)

I will ask again...did you try it?

Your laminate floor is probably 3/8" ?
Undo those screws in the floor and pry up on the railing.
I bet you can slip that piece under it without disturbing any other part of the railing.

Worth a try...if not .....oh well


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## Jamy Spencer (Apr 8, 2011)

*Go with the cap*

The laminate is a floating floor with a HDF core=not sturdy. With a floating floor pad underneath it would be prone to cracking when you torqued down the screws (and they do need to be torqued down to make the bannister stable. 

The cap well executed will look very nice, I'm not sure if I would have come up with an idea that good off the cuff.

Jamy Spencer
www.stlwoodfloors.com


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