Painting will not look right and it will not hold up. There are firms that will come in and spray (refinish) your treads and bannister because that is what I did. Then you can paint the spindles. My staircase was similar all one color from 1970s.

Hi what color should I stain this basement staircase handrail? I have “golden oak” through the rest of my home but she’s nice this is a basement, I wanted to go slightly darker in stain. Advice on a min wax stain? Stairs will be grey carpet and newel post painted white.

I think it's so a child can't fall through the space between the ceiling and the handrail. Four inches is pretty small, but then, I've seen some pretty agile little ones. There is a landing just at the top of the pic, so there isn't a lot of "rise" to work with, as a result. I think the code means add another rail at the bottom of the balusters- so there's a little space at the bottom, and the top rail is effectively lifted, rather than the balusters attached to the stairs themselves (so the top rail is lower). (so you're right, perhaps just raise it) It's a basement reno - inspectors here have passed the same design in other homes, so I think the inspectors need to do a better job educating. At any rate, I'm getting into the idea of a small newell post midway up the stairs, like the pic from the mount pleasant home near the top of this post. I'm going back down to have another look.

The simplest way to deal with that is to drill a horizontal hole through the top end of the railing and install a screw that is long enough to go through the wood railing, through the sheetrock, and into the wood framing in the wall at least 1". You should use a trim head screw -- a special screw with a small head -- and install it with an impact driver. When you're done, the head of the screw should be just beneath the wood surface of the railing so you can patch the small hole with wood filler. If you don't have the experience, skills, and tools to do this properly, get a knowledgeable friend or handyman to do it. It's not hard if you know what you are doing, but easy to mess up if you don't.