My house is an Arts & Crafts style (or more properly called Bungalow?)... built in the late 1930s ('38, I was told). I had another thread here showing good photos of the 'before' and 'current' porch. :)

I need to decide how to complete the porch and new stair railings, and can really use some help on achieving the correct 'look' for the style and fitting with the architect's vision!!! I have the original blueprints and they show that the porch has very simple 6x6 post railings: three 6x6 posts with a 6x6 top rail on each side. The original blueprints also show NO STAIR RAILINGS! but the stairs themselves are closed on the sides, and the closure has a large triangle cutout. The front porch deck (short distances from columns to stair edge) show another simple set of two 6x6 posts with a 6x6 top rail.

I'm told that I have to have stair railings, and that the original 6x6 posts won't be "to code"? (i.e., I guess they're not "safe enough". ugh!)

I'd love suggestions, preferably with pics or sketches, showing me what to do about the porch and stair railings! I'm thinking of simple 4x4 railings on the sides of the porch deck, using four 4x4 posts with a 4x4 top rail. I think that will satisfy "codes". I would then want to also use 4x4 posts and toprails for the stairs, but everyone is telling me that's too large. Why? Can anyone help?

Thank you!

My BIL is doing this work for me as a favor... he doesn't live in the same state, so he won't be back to finish it for awhile yet. We're trying to decide what the best solution is from here.

Here are the blueprints (hope it's ok to post these!). I had to send them to him too. :)

Thanks for the help!

Now, seeing your porch details, I don't think there would be any problem adding small 1x2 (or 1 1/4" square) pickets between the 6x6's to bring the railing up to present code. A 4"diameter sphere is used to check the spacing at the pickets or balusters. At the staircase, where a bottom rail leaves small triangular spaces where it runs above the treads and risers, the rule is for a 6" sphere to just fit. The only thing you have to worry about is the overall heights. the safety rail (horizontal runs) needs to be 36" tall, and the stair rails need to be 34" above the edge of each tread nosing. Higher is acceptable, but any lower is not.
If you paint the main 6x6 rails white, and all new code- mandated work a dark color, the overall effect will be the original appearance, as the dark color recedes into the background.
Casey

I'm just so happy to be rid of those concrete stairs!!! :)

Since the guards are so small and brutally detailed, I would consider a lighter, more decorative design perhaps in mahogany. Try WoodwayProducts.com

The idea of the Craftsman Style and the American Arts & Crafts movement was not brutal oversized materials but careful detailing of natural materials by artisans. Nothing could be further from that concept than your 6x6 guard railing.

Greene & Greene, the masters of the American Craftsman Style in California, often used wide balustrades of 1x6 or 1x8 wood with narrow spaces between them. 1x6's with 4 1/2 inches between them would be ideal in your case. P.T. deck boards could be used with a stain if low maintenance is important. The top rail can be tall but the top doesn't have to be thicker than 2 +/- inches so it can also be used for the handrail at the stairs.

Perhaps the 6x6 posts were used to pull elements together, because there is an "archway" between the LR/DR (called Niagra Colonade in the blueprints) and it's probably similar to what the porch guards would have looked like. Here's a photo of that archway that was taken after lots of cleanup and "restoration" work:

Now, if I were told that the archway is NOT A&C style, then I guess it might explain a few things! (BTW: the house was a MESS when I bought it, but it was this archway and those steam heat radiators that made me buy it. :)

My apologies to 'macv'... I misread your handle. :O)