My husband built a beautiful rustic style curved stone staircase off our back porch. Our challenge has been getting a handrail to match the curve without throwing a lump of money at it. The first attempt involved cedar sapling trunks, but we didn’t have one long enough, and splicing two together was tricky. When I was wandering our woods looking for hand rail candidates, I saw a grape vine that I’ve been meaning to trim because fungus has started into the side of the bark.

I cut off the vine above the fungal damage, and since that vine was a nice diameter for a hand rail, freed it from the canopy. I then cut away the diseased tissue from the main vine and sealed it with pruning spray.

It took three of us to wrestle the vine into place as a hand rail, but because the vine is supple and we waited until the rain gave it a good soak, it was possible.

We secured the vine with screws. The next step is to strip off the bark and seal the vine core so it lasts a little longer in the Texas weather.