Introduction - View the Video
Home owners and parents want to replace the wrought-iron stair railing around the second story stairwell, because the wide spacing between the balusters is not child-safe. The gaps are wide enough to allow a baby to crawl through or a toddler to catch his or her head. The construction of the existing railing also prevents adding a removable gate at the top of the stairs to prevent the child from tumbling down the stairs. We will replace the wrought-iron railings with a safer and more attractive wooden railing system featuring heavy oak newel posts and handrails.

Purchase Railing Kit
Identify features for the new stair railing and purchase the required materials. The homeowners select a railing system that includes machined railing, newel posts, and balusters. We will stain the oak railing and newel posts to carry over some of the design features elsewhere in the house. The balusters are poplar and intended to be painted.

Remove Existing Railing
Loosen and remove the lag screws that hold the base of the railing posts to the floor and the rails to the walls. Use a socket wrench/ratchet or box-end wrench to make the job easier.

Clean New Rails
Clean the dust from the stair railing components with tack cloths in preparation for painting.

Set Up for Painting
Set up sawhorses in a well ventilated and dust free area to use as a work surface for painting, staining, and varnishing the railing system. Lay a drop cloth beneath the sawhorses to catch drips and spills. Create a painting assembly line by temporarily nailing the balusters to a strip of lumber. Use a pneumatic nail gun. Rest the flat strip on the sawhorses and secure it so that it stands upright while you paint and the paint dries.

Paint and Stain
Paint the balusters. Stain and varnish the oak railing and newel posts.

Clamp the Posts
Brace the first newel post on your workbench. We add ordinary plastic food storage bags to the clamping mechanism on the workbench to protect the finish on the newel post anywhere it contacts the bench. Snug the clamps to hold the newel post. Examine the metal plate provided as part of the railing system for the bottom of the newel post. The pre-drilled plate has five large holes for attaching it to the newel post. Three sides of the plate have overhanging edges/ears with pre-drilled holes for attaching the newel post assembly to the floor.

Attach the Mounting Plates
Mark the center of the bottom of the newel post. We use a special center-finder attachment on our combination square to draw lines from corner to corner on the bottom of the post. The point where the lines intersect is the center. Drill a hole at the center mark, using a power drill/driver. Use a #3 driver bit for the large screw that attaches the plate to the bottom of the newel post. Drivers for Phillips head screws come in three sizes -- you will use the large bit that has a slightly blunted tip. Wax the screw threads on all sides of the large screw to facilitate driving it into the hard oak. Square the plate to the bottom of the post and drive in the other screws for additional strength and support. Repeat this step to mount the plate to the other newel posts.

Position the Newel Post
Position the newel post, using a carpenter's square. Align one leg of the carpenter's square with the edge of the stairwell and square the post to the other leg of the tool. Equip your power drill with a flexible shaft to bore pilot holes close to the newel post. Use the same flexible shaft to drive in screws to hold the post in place. Do not snug these screws, because you will remove the post later and then reinstall it with the railings attached.

Install the Rosette
Use a bar level and pencil to transfer the shape of the newel post's rectangular face to the opposite wall. Find and mark the center of that transferred rectangle. Center the stained oak rosette on the rectangle's center and trace the round shape on the wall. The rosette is a piece of decorative oak molding that came with the railing system -- the handrail will actually terminate at the rosette and attach to it. The manufacturer pre-drilled holes to attach it to the wall and to mount the handrail. Position the rosette in the traced circle with the larger bolt hole upwards, insert the toggle bolt, and tap it with a hammer to make a reference mark on the wall behind. Bore a hole at the reference mark that is big enough to slip the toggle through the wallboard. Insert the bolt through the rosette and screw on the toggle. Pinch the toggle closed and push it through the hole you just bored. The toggle will flip open inside the wall. Hold the rosette away from the wall as you use a power drill/driver to tighten the bolt. Holding it away from the front of the wall brings the toggle in contact with the back of the wall to stop it from spinning as you tighten the bolt. Once you have secured the bolt, the toggle will brace against the back of the wall and hold the rosette firmly in position.

Measure and Cut Railing
Take and record measurements for the length of each required section of railing. You will measure from the wall to the rectangular face of the newel post and between the two newel posts from one interior rectangular face/surface to the other. Use a sliding compound miter saw to make the straight cuts for the two sections of railing. You will need a handrail and a toe rail for each section.

Install the Toe Rail
Secure the toe rail to the floor with finish nails and a pneumatic nail gun. Sometimes we mount toe railing a few inches above finished flooring, but we mount the toe rail directly on the floor because we have moved the carpet back and exposed unfinished flooring.

Measure Baluster Spacing
Run a strip of painter's tape down the center of the toe rail in preparation for marking required measurements. Pencil marks can be difficult to see on dark stained surfaces, but the tape makes them more visible. Determine the desired spacing for the balusters. Building codes typically stipulate a maximum spacing for balusters. Cut a block the length of the desired spacing and use it as a guide to mark the baluster positions along the painter's tape for both railing sections. Set a pair of balusters upside-down on the tape in the positions just marked. Measure the widest gap between them. To ensure maximum child safety, no gap should be greater than 4 inches.

Drill Holes
Drill holes in the toe rail for the wooden pins/pegs on the bottom of the balusters. Use a spade bit on your power drill/driver to bore the holes. Remove the painter's tape once you have finished drilling. The painter's tape removes easily without sticky residue. Clean up the sawdust, particularly in the bored holes.

Tape and Align Newel Posts
Add masking tape to the interior faces of the newel posts where they meet the handrails and to the top of the handrails, themselves, and mark the center of each. In our project, there are two handrails and three newel posts -- the corner post is shared by both handrails, so it will need tape on two adjacent sides. Align the center marks for the newel posts and handrails on the tape (after temporarily installing a couple of balusters to support the handrail at the correct elevation), and then trace the shape of the handrail on the tape on the newel post. Remember, you will perform this step once on the newel post at the top of the stairs and twice on the corner newel post where the railing forms an L-shaped turn.

Drill Newel Posts
Use a portable drill press to bore a straight and centered hole for the railing in the face of the first newel post. This post has only one handrail attached, while the corner post will have two handrails attached on adjacent sides. Grasp a hanger bolt with a pair of vise grips. The hanger bolt has no head; one end has a coarse screw thread and the other has a finer machined thread. Screw the coarsely threaded end of a hanger bolt into the centered hole in each newel post, grasping and turning the bolt with a pair of vise grips. Secure the railing to the workbench and bore a hole into its end at the center. Use the portable drill press to keep the hole straight after adding a piece of wood to the drill press base to make it more stable. Use a larger 1-inch bit on the portable drill press to bore a hole into the bottom side of the handrail that will intersect the first hole at right angles. Repeat this step on the corner newel post that will have handrails attached at two adjacent sides. When this process is complete for both newel posts, you are ready to attach the first handrail.

Attach First Handrail
Hold the shorter of the two handrails perpendicular to the face of the corner newel post and slip the hole in the end of the handrail over the hanger bolt. Remember that the corner newel post has hanger bolts installed in two adjacent faces, so be sure to install the short handrail in the correct hole. Insert a spring washer over the end of the hanger bolt through the larger hole on the bottom of the rail. One surface of the washer is convex while the other is flat. The convex surface butts against the curved wooden interior of the hole. Locate a combination nut/washer in the components that came with the railing system. The flat side of the combination nut/washer will fit against the flat side of the spring washer you just installed. Put the washer into the special wrench that comes with the railing system and insert the tool through the large hole in the bottom of the handrail to place the combination nut/washer on the bolt. Tighten it against the spring washer to secure the hanger bolt.

Attach Handrail to Rosette
Set the base of the corner newel post on the floor with the short rail facing the rosette on the wall. Slide the hole in the opposite end of the rail over a hanger bolt installed in the rosette. Repeat the process in step 18 to add the special washer and combination nut/washer and secure the hanger bolt in the rosette.

Add Balusters
Install the balusters, inserting the bottoms (with the wooden pin ends) into the holes drilled earlier in the toe rail. Start next to the wall and work outward toward the corner newel post. Slide the top of the balusters into a slot on the underside of the handrail. The newel post is still loose, so tip it slightly to help with sliding the balusters into place.

Install Second Handrail
Repeat the processes in steps 18 and 20 to attach the second handrail.

Secure Newel Posts
Secure the newel posts to the floor, once all handrails and balusters are in place, driving screws through the metal plates on the bottom of the posts and into the floor.

Add Trim
Finally, tack small finished trim strips called fillet strips into the spaces between the balusters on the underside of the handrail to help hold the balusters in position. Toe nail each fillet strip to the baluster and handrail with a pneumatic nail gun. Add the stained oak rail to the other side of the staircase.