When we bought the house there was a separate kitchen and dining room; we decided to open up the space. And once we knocked down the wall between the two rooms when we realized that that still wasn't open enough for us... here is the dining room wall on the other side of the stairs pre-demo. Doesn't look light and airy, right?

I posted here about knocking down the wall and here about a railing we found at White Elephant for $35 after AJ knocked down the wall. This next photo shows what the wall looked like the other day... we lived like this for a while because it was / is a big project to fix the angle of the railing:

AJ is in process now of cutting each spindle to the correct angle to fit the drywall frame. It's been taking him a long time because he's checking and double checking each measurement. We are short one spindle based off what we need to meet building requirets... looks like we'll be heading to White Elephant to see if we can find one more railing that looks exactly like this one that we purchased.

I'll post more photos once we make more progress!