Simran's ideas

Reply to: I'll show pictures because I think we did almost exactly what you're wanting to do. Here's our before: And the after: Our cost was $7000. This was custom, though, they made the newels, I think they're called, to match other woodwork in our house, we chose the handrailing, etc.. We did replace the stair brackets as well.

Q

Reply to: To give you an idea, I had a similar thing done last April (new wood rail and iron balusters), but my staircase is shorter than yours. It all depends on how ornate the balusters you select are and the finish you choose. I went with a simple design in a standard black finish (two simple straight balusters followed by a more ornate one; I didn't want it to be too busy; as it was mentioned earlier, I was afraid that "too busy" would get old after a while and that it would get rapidly out of style). My balusters were however more expensive because they are in a textured finish, instead of a plain finish. The whole job cost 1200$ in material (42 balusters and solid maple hand rail) and 300$ to have them install (but not including varnish; I did this myself). Don't forget that you could keep the same handrail and change only the balusters; this is what they have in the target picture: a wood-iron combo. This is also what I did. Hope this helps.

Q