A staircase should be the finest piece of joinery in the house

Most staircases are bought as a kit and assembled on site. A Reeve & Co staircase is designed for one house, drawn full-size, and cut and jointed by hand in our Suffolk joinery workshop. Every tread, string and handrail is made to a measured survey of your stairwell, so the flight sits true, the rise stays consistent from bottom step to top, and the handrail flows in one continuous, unbroken line around half-landings and turns.

We have built staircases for Georgian and Victorian houses, new-build country homes, London townhouses and listed buildings under conservation control — including the slatted-oak staircase at our Beaufort Gardens project in Knightsbridge. Whether you want a faithful period staircase with turned balusters and a scrolled volute, or a contemporary open flight with floating oak treads and a frameless glass balustrade, the same craftsmen make it and the same team fits it. Nothing is sub-contracted to a staircase factory.

What a bespoke staircase commission can include

Most commissions combine several of the elements below — from a single replacement flight to the whole vertical journey through a house.

Period, contemporary, or a considered blend

Our work divides roughly into two traditions, with a good deal of ground in between. Period staircases — turned balusters, swept and ramped handrails, scrolled volutes and panelled spandrels — are drawn from photographs, surveys and the details already present in the house, and built so that a new flight reads as though it has always been there. Contemporary staircases are about restraint: open risers, floating treads, frameless glass and slim steel, where the quality is in the clean line of a single length of handrail. Many of the staircases we are asked for sit deliberately between the two — a traditional carcase with a glass balustrade, or a modern open flight in richly figured oak. Because we draw and make every component ourselves, alongside our wider bespoke joinery and timber panelling work, we are never tied to a catalogue of standard parts.

Structural design and building regulations

A staircase is joinery and structure at the same time, and it has to satisfy Part K of the Building Regulations. We set out every flight to a consistent rise and going, maintain the required headroom, keep balustrade heights correct, and ensure no gap allows a 100 mm sphere to pass — the standard that protects young children. For longer spans, cantilevers and open flights we work with the structural engineer and main contractor to agree fixings and load paths before anything is cut. In listed buildings we prepare drawings that support a listed-building consent application and detail the staircase sympathetically to the period of the house.

Materials and finishes for bespoke staircases

The staircase is usually finished to tie in with the doors, joinery and floor around it. Common specifications include:

The workshop and the team

Every staircase is made in our workshop at Mickfield in Suffolk, where traditional bench joinery sits alongside CNC machining. The machine cuts strings and housings to a tolerance no hand could repeat; the hand work — the shaping of a volute, the easing of a handrail, the final polish — is where a staircase becomes a piece of furniture rather than a building component. The same cabinet-makers who build our hand-made kitchens and fitted furniture make the staircases, which is why the joinery in a Reeve & Co hall always feels of a single piece. We keep the whole process — survey, drawing, machining, bench work, finishing and fitting — under one roof and one team.

Design considerations for a bespoke staircase

The best staircases are designed with the whole hall in mind, not drawn in isolation. We think about the proportion of the flight against the height of the void, the way daylight falls across the treads, and the single most important line in any staircase — the handrail — so that it sweeps without a break from newel to landing. We match mouldings, timber and finish to the doors and joinery already in the house, and we treat the understair as usable space: a cupboard, a panelled return, a seat or a discreet cloakroom.

Staircases for listed and period properties

Replacing or altering a staircase in a listed building is sensitive work that usually requires listed-building consent and often the involvement of a conservation officer. We are well used to it: surveying what survives, identifying the period and the original detailing, and producing drawings that show exactly how a repair or a new flight will be carried out. New timber is matched to old in species, moulding and finish, and joints are cut in the traditional way so the work is sympathetic — and reversible where it needs to be. The result protects the character of the building while giving you a staircase that is safe, sound and good for another century. It is the same conservation-led approach we bring to our timber panelling and period fitted joinery.

Caring for a hardwood staircase

A well-made timber staircase asks very little of you. We hand over finishing notes for the oil, lacquer or French polish we have used, so the surface can be refreshed rather than stripped. Treads in a busy family hall can be protected with a runner on traditional brass stair rods, and handrails benefit from an occasional wax. Solid timber moves a little with the seasons, which is why our treads are glued, wedged and blocked rather than simply screwed — the construction stays tight and silent for decades.

How the commission works

We survey and measure the stairwell, take in any architect’s drawings, and discuss how you want the staircase to look and feel. We then produce full-size setting-out and a fixed-price quotation before any timber is cut. The flight, balustrade and handrail are built and dry-assembled in the workshop, finished, then delivered and fitted by our own team, with a final polish once the building work around it is complete. One workshop is responsible from first drawing to final handrail.

Who commissions bespoke staircases from Reeve & Co

We work for private clients building or renovating a family home; for architects and interior designers who need a maker who can deliver a complex flight exactly to drawing; for main contractors on high-end residential projects; and for owners of listed and period properties. Most of our work is across Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, London and the Home Counties. You can see completed projects in our case studies, or explore our bespoke doors, windows and hand-made kitchens.

Bespoke staircase FAQs

Detail & craftsmanship