My dining room is not huge (maybe 8 x 12) but has a sloped ceiling so that one wall is about 12 ft high and the opposite is about 8 ft high (stupid vaulted ceilings - don't even get me started LOL). It's currently painted a very dark red on the bottom and cream on top with a white chair rail. I like the look a lot - never even considered any other moulding below the chair rail. I think your color choice is a matter of proportion. Having the dark color on top would be overwhelming in my room because of the height of the one wall in proportion to the dimensions of the room, but your room may be fine with dark on top. Either way, it would probably look fine to be painted and have no moulding below the chair rail. Donna

We looked into both of these for our deck a few years ago. Cable railing can be DIY but difficult due to the tension needed to tighten the cables. Also, there may be issues if you have small children using the cables as a ladder. Glass is AMAZINGLY expensive and we had quite a bit of railing area. It also must be all tempered of course. I'm glad fnmroberts posted their photo and that their glass "almost self cleans". Our deck had lots of birds and pine trees around, along with rainy sprinkles followed by dusty winds ugh. We ended up doing painted galvanized livestock fencing. All DIY. DH used various sizes of aluminum C- and U-channel to provide attachment frames to the posts. FYI, these are 4" squares so I'm not sure that they would pass the code test of small-child-head-sized rubber ball. HTH

We used livestock fence panels for our deck. We lived in a rural area out West so no difficulty finding ranching/livestock supplies. It was tricky finding panels that had the same size holes across the whole panel. The hog panels that Virgil mentioned have very small openings at the bottom and graduate to pretty darn big holes at the top. DIY by DH and friend. He bought online aluminum U-channel to make a frame for each panel and attach to the post. Then used aluminum-colored spray paint to help protect the galvanized panels and match the aluminum trim and silver-painted steel posts. The holes in the panel are right around 4", and our dogs were big enough not to fit through those holes. It was hard, tedious work as it was a second-story deck, but it sure looked wonderful when done. We used Timbertech composite for decking and for the railing. This is showing off the underrail LED lighting against the snow. Pretty cool! Edited to add: we also considered glass and cable to preserve the view but the costs were prohibitive. These panels virtually disappear during the day.

I have just moved and had the same dilemma in my new home. At first I looked at the Hunter Douglas sheer verticals but they cannot be cleaned expect via an ultrasonic bath...$$$$. But then I found the SmartDrape by Norman. It is individual verticals, half solid fabric and half sheer fabric. They are washable, no clanking with the soft fabric and does the job. What do you think?