Part 5 of our Deck renovation series; focusing on the railings, stairs and balusters by Trex .
This post is part of a branded content series with Home Hardware and Trex Decking.
Before embarking our deck build with Home Hardware, we wanted to scope out some inspiration for the style of deck we wanted.
In our case, you can see our general plans for our deck in this post where I talked about how we prepared for the deck renovation, including our list of ‘must haves’.
One of those ‘must haves’ was a railing that didn’t feel imposing (like the old one, which was basically just a wooden wall!) and that added character to our house.
We drove around the neighborhood a bunch of times, scoping out other people’s decks and balconies and noting what we liked or didn’t like about certain designs.
We ended up going with a traditional white railing, with matching square balusters and I couldn’t be happier.
The railing material
When we were scanning our neighborhood, we noticed that most other decks had either wooden or metal railings. Then we noticed that most of them were very weather worn (like our old deck) or the metal was quite rusted and unsightly.
I think this is mainly because we live so close to the ocean and the salt degrades both wood and metal very quickly.
Our Trex railing is neither wood nor metal and is a smooth plastic that is easy to wipe down. It won’t rust like a metal railing and, as with the Trex decking, it will stand up to the environmental stress of being on the coast.
The railing style
We debated whether we wanted to install plexi-glass or clear panels on the balcony portion of the deck, thinking it would be nice to have a clear view of the yard from up top.
In the end, however, we chose the more traditional balusters for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, we have two small kids and a very goobery dog. I talked to friends who have clear deck panels and all of them said they like them but are constantly wiping fingerprints and dog slobber off of them.
Obviously, if you don’t have kids or dogs, the clear panels won’t present this challenge (haha!), but I’m into those sticky, slobbery years for a while yet – so I didn’t want to complicate things.
The other consideration was our overall vision for our home. We both love the traditional coastal style home and our next major upgrade will be to the vinyl siding on the house.
We want to go dark on the siding and can see how the striking white railing will pop against a dark background. I don’t think the impact would be the same if the railing was clear.
Finally, this railing is both dreamy and a bit magical because it incorporates built in lighting!
In my next post, I’ll share how we are lighting the new deck space.
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