Renovating the foyer, stairs, and railings…
So we had new carpets in the master bedroom and the library. One carpet is blue, the other carpet is red. The carpet in our upstairs hallway and stairs was the original light brown/beige. The carpet-to-carpet transition between the new carpets and the old carpet was not attractive. So we were looking for a solution.

The local floor store where we got the library carpet also sells and installs various wood and wood laminate products. We took some samples home and liked the visual break the wood made with the carpet. We decided to pull up the old carpet in our hallway and on the stairs and replace it with a wood floor. We also decided to extend the wood floor into our first floor foyer.

After we selected the wood (Brazilian cherry) we realized that it would not match with our existing stair rails and balusters. I was telling this to a guy at work and he gave me a card for a local company that specializes in installing rail systems. We contacted them and they told us that they would be able to put in a new rail system to match our new floors.

The new rail system actually went in first. We went for white balusters versus natural wood color, it seems to make the hallway look bigger and brighter. The very next day the floor people came in and, in one long day, ripped out the old carpet, cut back the old stair treads, and installed the new floor and stairs. As you can see, the match between the rails and the floor is near perfect.