Now we wanted to add a personal touch to our craftsman style home and began to inlay tiny pieces of walnut, hand cut into the shape of oak leaves, onto a few of the lower treads and around the newel post. The inspiration for the inlaid leaves was for them to feel as if they had “fallen” from the oak branch design on the lantern hanging over the stairs. Here’s what they looked like before we stained our stairway. Notice how the grain of the walnut gives the feeling of veins on the leaves…neat huh?
Now the Greene & Greene inspired lantern was where the real creative collaboration began. Since buying a craftsman style light fixture like the one I wanted would totally blow the lighting budget, and since I already had experience with stained glass, (at least I did in 1978…) my cabinetmaker suggested that he and I could build the lantern frame together as a sort of a wood shop class/birthday present for me. Oh yeah! As an artist who enjoys the challenge of creating in different mediums, I took to it like a duck to water. Did you know that different species of wood have different smells..? Sorry I digress. We had such a blast making the lantern frame, that Pete encouraged me to stay involved, learn more about the woodworking craft, and continue with the designing and building the stairs. I would be The Apprentice. Oh – and best part? I was the client so I couldn’t be fired!
We created our Greene and Greene interpretation in quarter-sawn white oak. Each piece of wood was laboriously hand selected for its grain and “flake” pattern, every tread carefully grain matched. We were into it. We got a little crazy – maybe even obsessed. This was our masterpiece, our very own craftsman style stairs. We tortured ourselves trying to break the code – to figure out how to make the alternating widths of intertwining mortise and tenon railings into the pattern we had only seen in photographs. It was a jigsaw puzzle!
Looking for the Stairway to Heaven? Pardon my immodesty, but I think it’s the one in my Craftsman Bungalow. The chance to become involved in creating it came as a surprise when I was working with my cabinetmaker Pete Thomsen of Pacific Valley Woodsmith on other details in the building of our California Craftsman. I really can’t take much of the credit – it was inspired by the railings in the Blacker House, built by Greene and Greene.
This photograph taken by Linda Svendsen is featured in the book “Along Bungalow Lines” by Paul Duchscherer. It was a huge honor to have our bungalow featured in his book. Many amazing craftsman style homes are shown in this and other publications by Paul Duchscherer, and all of them are wonderful sources of inspiration and ideas.
Our goal was to be inspired by the masters, but to use lighter materials. To reinterpret the staircase with our own uniqueness and creativity, and make it our own.
