partial deconstruction of railing - an annoying task or stupid?

[Speedy]

modelamac wrote:
[quote=mattkime]
Our upstairs stairway railing is very annoying - its as though the builders contemplated making a railing or a death trap and decided "why not both"? Its very solid but the standards are roughly 2x current code spacing. Its more than enough room for my youngest child to fall through. This means being on high alert whenever we're upstairs without doors closed.

I'm trying to figure out whether it can be rebuilt without a full teardown in a manner that we'd be satisfied with. At first this seems like a straight forward question but there are a couple of layers of wood where the standards meet the floor and railing that complicate the matter. If we can pull out the existing standards and install all new ones my wife will be happy and never request a full rebuild. We could alternate metal and wood and this would work (and be relatively easy) but its not aesthetically pleasing.

Its occurred to me that I could try removing one standard and just see how it goes. Obviously thats a destructive step that might not have a happy outcome.

Any advice on tackling this problem?

Matt.

I would just build a supplemental railing beside it. Make it look good, not quite as tall (hand rail for youngsters) and double density newells or staggered to fill in the gaps. Make to removable. You would not have to match anything but the stain, but it would be nice if you can get it to complement to original railing. When you remove it after the child is old enough, all you need to do is fill in the screw holes with the appropriate material.
What screw holes? Use appropriately colored nylon ties.

[kurtzie]

bazookaman wrote:
Ask Tommy.

That's what I thought of too.

Steve

[mattkime]

I decided to go with a childproof netting. We'll decide what we want done with that banister when the carpet is replaced and we install hard wood floors.

[rgG]

mattkime wrote:
I decided to go with a childproof netting. We'll decide what we want done with that banister when the carpet is replaced and we install hard wood floors.

I think that is a good plan. No need to do then redo.