Suggestions on how to do hand rail/spindles on this staircase

[Jdwood38]

Hi all,

Doing a quick bit of renovation on a new house I've just purchased. One of the big jobs is opening up some old boxed in banisters, replacing the newel posts, converting to vertical spindles and closing in the now open staircase that the previous owners went for. All quite important as I have a little explorer! Just wondering for opinions on how to do the 'closing in' part...

As you may be able to see from the pics, the new newel post on the side of the open staircase will be slightly offset to the centre of the string to allow the banister on the landing to be centre to the half newel on the wall (a doorway dictates the measurements for this part). So, there is no way that new base and handrail will be able to meet the top newel if I chose to notch them around the plastered side of the floor at the top of the staircase. Attached is a pic of my parents place who had something very similar done a while ago which I think is probably what I will do unless anyone could suggest other options?

Existing newels are non structural to the staircase so are just being cut flush and new newels notched around them and fixed to the joists. There will also be a full length handrail on the closed side of the staircase to ensure that we do actually have one from the top.

Don't think I've explained that very well but grateful for thoughts all the same.

 

[blup]

I think the best you can hope to do is double up the open side stringer and install spindles as per the finished pic.

Either that or some expensive structural alterations to the original opening.

Blup

 

[Jdwood38]

Thanks Blup. As suggested it didn't appear there were many other options than following the approach posted which I have now done and it looks fine, although slight difference in width of hand and base rail is a bit annoying where they meet but I'm sure will be made good by the decorators.

Thanks again