We did go with Railing works, and recommend them highly! We've gotten lots of compliments in the years since. The color fits our stucco, and the cables almost disappear as we're looking through the railing to our back yard Our experience was very pleasant, and the results awesome. They were knowledgeable, easy to work with. Easy to get samples of color and the top/bottom etc. elements, so which is what persuaded my skeptical DH that this was precisely machined, excellent powder coating, a very clever design, and could be a DIY project. They worked with DH to choose the type of attachments to the deck, and also to the concrete stairs. In collaboration with them, we supplied the specifications for the railing, including all turns and stairs -- they answered all his questions, mailed diagrams back and forth till my engineer husband was certain it was all nailed down. The "kit" came with clear instructions. It did require cutting the top and bottom rails to for some of the 90-degree angles; DH has a circular saw, so that wasn't a problem, though My husband and sons (16 and 10) installed the railings around our deck, and also next to the stairs to our front entrance. I can't praise it enough!

No problem -- there was a lot of political stuff going on here recently and we also get spammers using all sorts of tricky methods to do their thing (free advertising is not permitted and there's another forum called 'Hot Topics' on the Garden side for the controversial and emotion-packed subjects). You can post photos by using a site like ImageShack or Photobucket. It's free and you upload the pics from your pc and then just cut and paste the supplied link into the form here. Make sure the correct code is used by seeing that your image appears in the 'Preview' area.

Leave it be. Stair work is some of the most expensive zero payback work that you can have done. And what you had was so much better than the overwrought 1997 fakery shown.

I prefer wrought iron railings to have the (don't know the term) bottom piece like your upper railing has, that doesn't attach to the treads at all. It's not as modern I guess. But the straight simple uprights (still don't know stair terms) in your inspiration photo might still look contemporary enough if you built it with the bottom thingie.