DIY Cable Railing
19 May 2017
Happy Friday ya’ll! Need a little house project inspiration? It looks like this weekend is the perfect “stay inside and complete a project” type of weekend! If you’ve been following along you might remember we remodeled our master bath and master bedroom. In case you’re not up to date this is a little smidge of what the space looked like when we moved in:
Definitely not horrible but not the best either. The bathroom was our main focus as it was teeny tiny but the bedroom needed a little help also. One of my biggest problems with the room was the railing. It completely protruded into the room and took up more space than necessary.
My immediate solution that I wanted was a cable railing. I had this priced out and for such a small area it was astronomical, so that was out, or so I thought. (Disclaimer-I’m not saying that the companies who sell this product are crap-I’ve seen them in person and they are awesome. It has metal posts, not wood and is definitely seamless.) I knew I really wanted this look and needed to figure out how to accomplish it for much less. I did lots of research, watched a couple youtube videos, and found the supplies we would need for pretty cheap. Now all that was left was to convince the EverydayMr to help!
Considering we had already ripped out the half wall/railing that was there we obviously had to do something. I showed him the numbers of us doing this versus someone else and it was pretty much a no brainer.
I bought the cable, fittings, and cable cutter from this website. For our posts we just used 4×4 poplar from Lowes that we cut to the height we wanted (42″). And I watched this video to get an idea of how to do it and what we needed.
We completed this project over a few evenings. The first evening took about 4-5 hours and we felt like we hadn’t completed anything. We learned while cutting the cable you couldn’t just cut it willy nilly or it wouldn’t fit into the fitting easily. And by not easily I mean we were considering calling it quits throwing the cable out and hiring someone. Not dramatic, at all.
We came back the next evening feeling like we knew a little bit more about what we were doing this time around. A couple hours later and we had all the cables where we wanted them and were feeling pretty proud of ourselves.
I still have left the top railing in it’s natural color because I can’t decide if I should stain or paint it to match. Also, I was completely done with the project and didn’t want to paint another thing ever again. Again, not dramatic, in the least. So I’ve left it and still haven’t decided. Overall though I am SO happy with the outcome especially considering the cost. My top advice if you are going to tackle your own cable railing is to measure, and then measure three more times before cutting wires. Another tip is to have a strong man to crimp the fitting onto the wire-this is tough!! Thanks EverydayMr for the help on that one especially. And last, if you have an idea go for it! In just cable materials it cost about $75 + the posts and railing at $40 overall it was less that $125. Way, way better deal than the $2,500 I was quoted for this little area (that didn’t include labor). There you have it, our latest #hickoryhouse project complete! As in one of my fave real interior design book, The Nesting Place, don’t be afraid to make holes in the walls and complete home projects for way less money than people say it can be if you put forth the effort!
