Stairs, railings & balconies · Cortland Row & the Mill District · Est. 2013
Every building has a staircase nobody photographs. We do not build that one.
Rise & Run fabricates interior stairs, guard rails and balconies for the homes and galleries of Cortland Row — measured on site to the sixteenth, welded to the code book’s two-hundred-pound line, and finished to be touched. Steel, brass, or steel that pretends to be neither.
Measured-fit guarantee: it lands on the drawing’s tolerances or it does not ship — 310 installations, zero shims
The measured-fit guarantee carries every rail we ship — and the site measure is free, including the one where you keep the drawings and we keep nothing · (555) 419-6627 · shop@riseandrunmetal.example
The shop builds
Three commissions, one bench
The stair as the room
A staircase is the largest piece of furniture most homes will ever own, and it is usually the ugliest thing in them. We build the alternative: floating treads on a hidden stringer, a central spine in weathered steel, or a straight run in brass that ages like a violin. The stair sets the room’s key; we spend the design hours where the eye lands — the first tread, the hand’s line up the rail, the light through the balusters.
Rails that pass the grab test
A guard rail has two audiences: the inspector, who loads it with two hundred pounds in his mind, and the grandmother, who loads it with her whole trust on the way down. Both get the same answer — posts through the structure rather than into it, returns welded and dressed, and a hand’s line that runs unbroken from first post to last. Glass where the view argues for it, pickets where the budget does, cable where neither wins.
Balconies & juliet doors
The steelwork that makes a window a destination: bolted to the structure with the load path drawn before the first cut, deck plates that shed rather than pool, and rail details that match the stair because the same bench made both. Weathered steel for the garden face, powder coat for the street face, brass for the rooms that earn it.
Services & rates
The shop rates, posted like the menu at a good bar
Every number includes the site measure, the drawing, the finish and the install — a stair is not a kit of parts and a hope. Finishes run powder coat, weathered steel, or hand-waxed bare; brass and stainless are quoted by the sheet on the day, because the metal market is honest and so are we.
Straight-run stair, steel spinefrom $8,900
treads in oak or steel, installed
Floating-tread stair, hidden stringerfrom $11,400
the wall carries it; the wall knows
Guard rail, steel picketsfrom $148/ln ft
code load, dressed welds, powder coat
Guard rail, glass infillfrom $210/ln ft
low-iron, clamped, code-stamped
Balcony frame & deckfrom $4,200
load-path drawn, bolted to structure
Site measure & template$0
free, and yours to keep
How a commission runs
From template to load test
The site measure
Laser and story pole, to the sixteenth: finished-floor heights, the out-of-plumb the framers left you, and the headroom line at every tread. The template is the truth the drawing aspires to, and it is yours whoever fabricates.
The drawing
Rendered elevations with the rise, the run and the rail line called out — plus the finish samples in hand. One revision is included, because first drawings are conversations, and the second is the contract.
The bench
Cut, fit, weld, dress. Every weld that will be touched is dressed and filed; every return is welded rather than bent; and the mock-up of the first three treads is stood in the shop for your approval before the rest follow.
The install & the load test
Carried in as sections, bolted and welded on site, then loaded — the inspector’s two hundred pounds applied where the code says, in front of you. It does not sway, because it was never going to.
Twelve years at Cortland Row
The bench ledger
The stair is the first thing every visitor touches and the thing they all mention. The handrail runs unbroken top to bottom with a warmth I did not expect from steel, and the treads landed on the oak floors without a shim — which the flooring contractor told me he had never seen.
Our gallery needed a guard rail that would pass code and disappear. They drew three options, we picked the clamped glass, and the inspector loaded the top rail with his full weight while smiling, which is as close to theatre as an inspection gets. The building is on the tour now.
The building code says a rail must resist two hundred pounds. That is the floor, not the ceiling — a rail must also forgive the hand that grabs it in the dark, at the wrong angle, in a hurry. One is arithmetic; the other is the reason the shop exists.
Asked over the drawing table
Steel stairs in a family home — loud and cold?
Wrong steel, wrong detail. Ours run on a hidden spine with isolated tread mounts that kill the drum effect, and oak treads cost barely more than bare steel once finishing is counted. Cold is a myth from railings bolted to concrete; hand temperature is a matter of the wax, and we hand-wax.
How long does a commission take?
Six to ten weeks from approved drawing: a week for the site measure and drawing, the bench four to six depending on finish, and the install is days. The mock-up of your first three treads is stood in the shop partway through, so the finish is approved on metal rather than on a rendering.
Can you match the ironwork already in the house?
Usually — profiles, finish and weld dressing can be mirrored so new reads old at two paces and honest at one. Where the original is cast and the match matters, we quote pattern work; where it does not, we say so and save you the money.
What does the measured-fit guarantee mean exactly?
That the piece lands on the tolerances of the template we took, or it does not ship and the redo is ours — including the finish. In twelve years it has cost us one balcony return, and that story is told at the bench as a warning to the young welders.
Bring the photographs, or just the stairwell.
The site measure is free and the template is yours whoever fabricates — an afternoon of lasers and story poles that answers what the photographs cannot. The drawing and the fixed quote follow inside a week.
Rise & Run Metal Co. · Lic. #MF-3310 · every rail load-tested to the code book in front of you · shop@riseandrunmetal.example · 6 Bench Lane, Cortland Row