I was just taking a virtual tour of the best homes in Dallas. It still amazes me that a lot of HP (Highland Park) and UP (University Park) residents who live in extremely expensive homes (multi-million) have the cheapest looking stair railings and gas lanterns. I assuming this is because they just don't realize what they were being sold. It drives me absolutely crazy every time I see this.
I decided to take a few snapshots of what I would never install in a multi-million dollar home. Now, don't get me wrong, it's perfectly acceptable for a regular home like mine, but then again, I don't have an Aston Martin parked in my drive. I hope you see my point.
We'll take it slow and start with metalwork... I'll save the lighting for another day.
Lets talk scrolls first. None of the following have any business what so ever in a multi-million dollar home. Why?
Bad shaping, bad forging. Sloppy, and the welds are very sloppy too. See how any scroll coming out of a larger scroll looks as if it's just slapped onto the larger one? That is a very big no-no.
This one is simply laser cut, and you'd think that they'd at least come up with a good design, but no.
Slightly better then the top two, but still, the forging is not so great, and the design is also lacking. Looks cheap!
Almost not bad at all, except for all the really cheap standard components. When you add it all up, it's a n undersized no-no for a large home.
Also, almost not so bad if it wasn't such a flat design with standard, off the shelf components.
And now for actual railings:
Looks fancy enough, doesn't it? All that scrolly stuff and all that bling? Well, at least they made the effort to make standard, not proportionately put together railing look a bit less standard. Hurts my eyes nevertheless; it almost looks as if it was made of wire.
Again, standard components spliced together.
"Bird cages"... what can I say about "bird cages". They used to be cool way back when they were hand forged and rare, but now they are so standard that it hurts me every time I see them. To make matters worse, like most of the railings on this page, they are glued into the wood and after a while will start coming loose.
Again, "bird cages" and standard, pre-made scrolls. Everything is purchased off the shelf and spliced together. The endings are just terrible, and all of it is machine made. (Standard = machine made and sold like hot cakes; everyone's got one!)
Bad forging and absolutely no rhyme or reason in the design-work (if you can call it that)
Same as above plus a bunch of standard components, it's probably a cheap rip-off of some old lovely French rail, but it's been so butchered that the design is lost in translation.
Terribly proportioned, just terrible forging, bad design.
Simply standard; almost an apartment railing.
Straight off the shelf.
Metalwork should flow, have a great design to it, be proportionately made, scrolls should flow out of each other instead of being "stuck" to each other, welds should be properly cleaned, the tips should be properly forged, the scrolls should be flowing like poetry. All or most of this is missing in all of the above designs. It's like a difference between getting faux stone or the real thing... you can just tell, no matter how good the impression of the real thing is.
Here are a few examples of well made, custom ironwork, worthy of a multi-million dollar home. Beautiful, well made things don't have to be found only in expensive homes. Lots of people live in smaller homes and have an appreciation for fine things. See the difference?
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See how the scrolls are beautifully forged and everything is well balanced?
Pine cone and needle railing... want to get creative? Sure, but make sure that the elements look great not only from far away, but up close as well.
Closeup of the organic wrought iron railing above.
If you own a large home, proportion your railing to it.
A small, exterior railing can look good too!
