Yes, and on Bellevue's high-end projects this coordination is often important. We can match a railing to existing brass or bronze door hardware, fixtures, and fittings, and tune the finish to sit alongside them. Because we fabricate and finish in-house, we can also blend brass or bronze with steel, glass, stone, or wood in one railing and control how the whole composition reads.

Yes, and bronze is ideal for it. Outdoors, bronze weathers to a protective patina instead of corroding. For exterior railings near Lake Washington, we use silicon bronze, the marine-grade alloy, so lakeside moisture is no concern. Polished brass can also be used outside, though it will patina faster in the damp, so we usually steer exterior projects toward bronze or a living finish.

Brass develops a patina as it reacts with the air, which is part of its appeal. To keep it bright, we apply a lacquer that holds the polish, and upkeep is just occasional dusting. To let it age, we leave it unlacquered and you control the patina with an occasional polish. A living-finish bronze is designed to age and needs essentially no maintenance, which suits a low-fuss high-end home.

They are both warm copper alloys with different character. Brass, copper and zinc, is brighter and more golden and takes a high polish, so it suits refined interior railings. Bronze, copper and tin, is warmer and browner and weathers to a stable patina, which makes it the traditional outdoor choice. In Bellevue we tend to use brass for interior statement stairs and bronze for exterior and architectural work, and we will guide you to the right one.