You've gotten all the choices so far. I can only add one more thing. Can you become very, very good friends with your neighbor? Somehow if she knows you and your cat, the noise won't be as disturbing. I can't imagine your cat running for hours on end. Also, if you get to know your neighbor, you too can be more considerate of distracting your cat when you know your neighbor is still sleeping, or having friends over etc. She too will understand the need for your cat to play, at least sometimes. We have noisy side neighbors. My neighborhood is turning over to young families which is fine. And, I don't mind hearing kids shout while they play. But….it is the dad that is the issue. They play soccer I think and if a kids doesn't hit a goal the dad yells OOOOOOOOooooooo. But in a friendly way, like you almost got it! One day, this went on for two hours. I timed it. There is nothing we can do, and luckily we have breaks when they are not in the yard. It just shows you how one family's enjoyment can greatly be affected.by another.

Were it mine, I'd consider having the one single railing on the right side, and on the left side I'd have either the existing two segments of railing or remove the upper section along the wall as no longer needed. Re the left newel post being too tall, I think the installer needs to verify that the railing height is adequate. The railing appears too low to me. I am not sure you understand the complexity of the installation nor the costs involved. I am of above average handyman skills, but I would never tackle a project such as this. Likely costs are in the thousands.

I am a diy housepainter, and what I've done with the high ceiling is to paint everything up to where I can reach with my ladder (and I certainly don't put my ladder on stairs). By the time I'm done, there's just the high walls and the ceiling, which covers our large-ish living room and the stairs. I had a crew sent by a professional contractor come just to spray the high ceiling and the walls of the stairway at the top. I used the same color as the wall paint, same eggshell sheen, and I provided the paint. In my HCOL area, it was, as I recall, $500, and this is a 22' ceiling with wide staircase (2 guys, 1 day), which looks much bigger than yours. In the interests of safety, I would explore options like this. It is easy to test your existing paint to see if it is oil-based or latex. You can google it. If it's oil-based, you'll do an extra step or two, but it's not hard. Another thing to note is that you can do a LOT of prep work in advance of the painting day. You can sand, spackle, and especially tape off the trim, unscrew and prepare the switch plates and vents and light fixtures. You can peek at some diy videos for how-to best prepare. I'd buy a couple canvas tarps, and some of that paper on rolls to cover the walkways to protect your floors. And lots of painters tape, primer, and good quality paint.

If you paid for a 'retread' then you might only get new wood on the treads. If you paid for the spindles to be removed, the Red Oak removed and replaced with matching white oak, then you have a right to be upset. It all depends on the contract. Stairs are tricky. They are expensive, they are tiring, they are tricky and then are (once again) expensive. **If your original talk (ie. contract) spoke about staining, the GC (not a wood professional by any stretch of the imagination) would assume the two woods could be matched once stain went down (very common to work this way). If you then changed your mind and went with a natural finish, the Red Oak stringers became a liability that never were properly addressed after that (ie. paid for removal). Did your GC use a finishing Carpenter? If s/he did not, the GC was saving money. What used to be on the stair treads? Do you have photos of before (old coverings) and after (new wood with finish)?