Top Newel Removal????????????????????????

[chirpychippy]

Hello, I am going to upgrade my mates staircase for her, from the 70's style it is now to a modern contemporary glazed stair case. Its a winder stair case with the winder at the bottom turning onto to a straight flight to the first floor. Comprising of 1 newel post at the bottom and 1 newel post at the top.

So because she wants Oak Hand/Base rail I am going to remove the bottom newel in its entirety obviously removing the treads and risers on the winder to do so and replace with an Oak 4 X4 Newel. This bit doesn't faze me at all, but what is fazing me is the top newel. I know I cant remove this in its entirety without taking the staircase out. Soooo,

My question is this, the current newels are softwood and have been stained to resemble that awful colour Sapelle, with this in mind I would like to cut as much of the top newel away as possible, ideally level with the top of the top tread "BUT" I feel that this would seriously undermine the structural integrity of the top newels purpose and am now baffled as to how I can attach an Oak newel and make it look any good when its sitting directly onto a cut down newel.

Does anyone have any pointers for me please.

 

[RogerBoyle]

Instead of cutting the newel post why not simply clad it in some Oak

 

[chirpychippy]

Thank you for your reply Roger, but to be honest I cant see how I can do that, the post at the moment is 4x4 so cladding would make it bigger imo then it would be unusually bigger than tother one?

 

[chirpychippy]

Cheers Roger cladding seems to be the best option, for both posts, thanks for the idea, chirpy.