Skip to Content
The cube — Western Springs — Custom Railz & Stairz
Gallery/Western Springs · Illinois

The cube.

A three-story stair in honey oak, with newel posts that pierce themselves — three square cutouts carved cleanly through every face.

Most newel posts are solid. Most are turned. A few are square. Almost none are pierced. This one is.

The signature is the newel post. Square section, honey-stained oak, capped with a flat block — and bored through three times on every face with clean square cutouts. The negative space is the detail. Light moves through the post, the eye registers it as both heavy and weightless, and the geometry reads from any angle. Most posts hide their craft inside the joinery. This one puts it on display.

The rail vocabulary picks up the same square language. Rectangular iron balusters — long thin verticals interrupted by the occasional framed-rectangle inset — sit between honey oak top rails and shoe rails. The geometry is purely linear. Nothing turned, nothing curved, nothing fussy. The stair lets the newel posts do the talking and stays quiet everywhere else.

The home reads as transitional more than modern, with white wainscot panels along the wall and a window seat tucked into the attic landing. The honey stain on the oak — warmer than the dark-stained pieces in our other Western Springs work — keeps everything in conversation with the floors. Three stories of stair, basement to attic, every flight speaking the same vocabulary.

Specifications
StyleSwitchback, three full stories
TreadsHoney-stained red oak, closed riser
RisersWhite-painted
NewelsSolid oak, square section, three square cutouts per face
BalustersRectangular iron, mixed plain rod and framed-rectangle pattern
ScopeBasement to attic, every flight in our shop

Most newel posts hide their craft inside the joinery. This one puts it on display.

Selected Frames

Lower run from below — the foyer entry with the stair beginning its climb.

The attic landing — built-in oak window seat tucked under the dormer.

Foyer context — the stair sits at the heart of the open floor plan.

Lower newel detail at the foyer — three cube cutouts on every face.

The second-floor landing, looking back at the stair from the bedroom hall.

Newel-to-rail at the entry — square section meeting honey oak.

Begin the conversation

Tell us about the stair your house deserves.

© Custom Railz & Stairz — Crafted in Chicagoland