Modern staircases often rely on light colours and materials such as metal and glass to create a stylish focal point that brings your home together. It’s important that you choose the right handrail for your desired aesthetic, but this can be tricky if you aren’t sure what to look for. So, how do you choose the right modern handrail for your staircase?

When choosing the right handrail for your modern staircase renovation, you’ll want to consider a few factors, including:

• Colour: Lighter colours lend themselves well to modern interiors, giving a clean and polished look.
• Material: Materials, like glass or metal, are perfect for creating a bright and open staircase.
• Budget: Replacing your stair parts with a softwood option may be better suited to your budget than metal or hardwood.

In this blog, we’ll discuss how to choose a modern handrail to emphasise the contemporary feel of a staircase.

What should I look for in a modern handrail?

Here at Jackson Woodturners, we offer a range of handrail material options, with an option for every style and taste. Some of them will be more suited to this aesthetic than others that may lean into a warmer and more traditional look.

Lighter woods

Lighter colours and simple designs work extremely well to create a contemporary feel, with light wooden handrails helping to create a welcoming, bright space that makes your staircase appear larger. Some ideal options include:

• Hemlock: A predominantly knot-free timber with a straight grain, hemlock is easy to stain without distorting your desired colour and doesn’t split or break when being worked with.
• Pine: Pine is a knotty timber with a natural creamy white to yellow appearance, making it perfect for modern staircases. It can also be stained, varnished, or painted to your desired colour.
• White primed: This material consists of either birch or poplar, sprayed white to a very high standard. They are defined as ‘primed’, as there can be some colour variation between batches, so they can be either finished in the colour of your choice or just left plain.
• Oak: White oak is known for its excellent strength and is a common favourite for modern staircases, offering an attractive pale brown colour. Oak is straight-grained and stains or polishes well to enhance its natural look.

Glass

Incorporating glass into a balustrade is very common in contemporary homes, opening up the staircase and introducing light to the space. Glass-grooved or ungrooved handrails work well with glass panels and are ideal if you’d like to show off some stunning natural wood flooring. 

For example, you could go for just one of our many handrails that have an 8mm groove cut into them for glass panes. The glass is then secured to the handrail with silicone. You could also opt for an ungrooved option and pair your handrail with glass brackets.

This is the perfect choice if you’d like to keep your handrail in a more traditional and customisable material, like wood, but still bring that modern touch.

Browse our full range of glass panels today, or check out our selection of ungrooved and glass-grooved handrails.

Metal

If you’re going for an ultra-modern look, metal handrails are the perfect option. The reflective surface of a sleek chrome handrail is commonly paired with glass panels to bring the entire staircase together.

If you’ve chosen a white primed handrail, you can still modernise the look with some black metal spindles.

Additionally, if you’d like to keep your current wall-mounted mopstick handrail but update your staircase to a more contemporary style, use metal end caps and wall brackets. These are easy to incorporate and might be the ideal budget-friendly option over a full renovation.

Choose Jackson Woodturners for your stair handrails

With more than a century of woodturning expertise, our fourth-generation family business continues to provide practical, affordable guidance. We’re here to help turn your house into a home, so get in touch with our team today!