First Steps Designs Builds Stairs for Eddie Hall
In another win for First Step Designs—recently featured on Grand Designs and nominated for a 2024 Build It Award—the world’s strongest man, Eddie Hall, turned to us to redesign and renovate his Staffordshire home’s staircase.
Designing for ‘The Beast’
Our relationship with Eddie Hall actually started just over a year ago. We renovated the staircase in his parent’s home, bringing a dated staircase to new life with modern materials and finishes. Impressed with what he saw in his parent’s home and their accounts of working with us, we were his first choice for rebuilding the stairs in his home that he’s been renovating over the last 5 years.
After meeting Eddie and inspecting his existing stairs, First Step Designs recommended renovating the existing structures as opposed to ripping them out and starting over. The staircase runs along a narrow and rarely used passage to a back room; however, it’s the first thing you see when you open the front door, and its aged appearance didn't fit in with the rest of Eddie's newly renovated home. We chose to preserve the existing structure, which was in excellent condition with no bending, flexing, or creaks, while completely redesigning the bannisters and treads to blend in with the rest of Eddie's home.
Happy to hear that we wouldn’t be ripping up the front half of his home and impressed with the 3D renderings of what the final product would look like, it was off to fabrication for a couple of days, then back to Eddie’s for arguably the most fun installation we’ve ever had.
Eddie Hall: Deconstruction Expert
Renovating Eddie Hall’s staircase meant having to remove the existing newel posts and balustrades. When you’re completely rebuilding the stairs and don’t care about the well-being of the structure underneath, this is easy, and you can even go at it with a sledgehammer. In this build, however, it was important to keep the wooden base intact. As they tend to do, wooden features slotted, glued, and screwed into place 60+ years ago tend to develop quite a grip, making it very difficult to remove them. Luckily, we just happened to have the world’s strongest man walking around and eager to help…
The moment passed pretty quickly, but it went something like this:
Josh: “Eddie, would you please help me to remove this post? We have to lift it straight up, but it’s not budging. If you could join the three of us and…”
***Eddie Hall proceeds to effortlessly remove a 4x4” newel post and the rest of the balustrades while the rest of us mortals stand back.***
In no time, largely due to Eddie’s efforts, we were ready to update the now-stripped stairs with modern glass and white oak balustrades that allow more light into the front of the home and new treads covered in hard-wearing carpeting that complements the rest of the design and home’s aesthetic.
First Step Designs: A Recognised Authority in Innovative Staircase Design
Over the last 10 years, we’ve proven our floating staircase design and fabrication skills again and again. Within just the last year, we’ve had our Wye Valley project featured on Grand Designs, our recent ‘The Retreat’ project has been nominated for a Build It Award 2024, and we’re now building for increasingly high-profile celebrities.
These achievements, along with a flawless record of 106 consecutive 5-star Google reviews, mean that your home’s biggest and most significant structural feature is in safe hands with First Step Designs. Reach out to us to find out how we can help you design and install stairs that turn heads.
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