We have a balcony above our living room that you can look from the hallway down to the living room. Unfortunately, it was obviously not built to code, because our children can fit their heads through and Elias' whole body could fit through if he turned sideways. Since we didn't want any fatalities and each one of our kids got their heads stuck at least once, we decided to fix the problem. I wasn't sure what to do at first. I wondered about replacing the whole thing, but decided that would be too expensive. My dad suggested putting chicken wire up over the whole thing. (Yes, you read that right--chicken wire!) I looked at Home Depot and Lowes for ballusters, but they were $4-5 each and we needed 22, so that would have been too expensive, also. Finally, I decided I could just use dowels (much more manageable at $1.75 each). I drilled holes in the bottom and then drilled holes in the upper railing about twice as deep as needed. That way I could put the dowel up into the upper hole, then drop it down into the lower hole. I glued them in and then stained them. (Am I good or what?! The stain matches perfect and I was just guessing and hoping for the best!) Anyway, I think it looks pretty dang good and it's nice that I don't have to worry about my babies falling through the railing!
Elias with the railing before.
Another picture of Elias, before.
Here's after the dowels were put in, but not stained.
I'll post another picture of the final product soon. I have to charge my batteries for my camera.
Ok...I got the picture. So here's the finished product.
Please excuse the blurry nature of the above photo. Dale took it and he never takes the pictures, so he needs some practice. :)
2 comments:
Sonnet, you are brillant!!! It looks really good!
My dad would have also suggested chicken wire! They must be related. Looks good and what a good idea.
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