I've seen cable used (on the deck that our architect built at his own house), and it looks nice - unobtrusive, kind of industrial chic. His deck was grey Trex, with (I think) aluminum or steel posts, so it blended in well. We opted not to use cable on our own deck for a couple reasons: - The tension on the cables (to keep them taught) would have required substantially beefed-up posts, and would have put a lot of strain on the posts at corners, where the cables would have to make 90-degree turns. Given that we wanted to use ipe posts, rather than metal, it just wasn't practical to engineer them to take the strain of the cables - especially since the wood itself wants to move somewhat. We would have had to keep adjusting the turnbuckles to accommodate the movement of the wood, at least until it acclimated and stopped moving. - The cables are horizontal, which, with small kids in the house, makes a perfect climbing ladder, right over the top of the railing. Not a good idea for us. We opted not to use glass for exactly the reason you cited: we didn't need to spend the rest of our lives with a bottle of Windex in our hands. It wouldn't be just sprinklers and birds for us, but toddler hands and dog noses too.

Ontariomom, I wonder with the set up that Ice has if that still might work for you because the panels are not solid up to the railing. I think the opening above the frosted glass makes it much less a barrier than frosted glass all the way up. I don't think it would appear to block the house like other, more solid choices would. And it would give you a bit of privacy on that deck, plus solve the cleaning issues. You could explore the code for how much space above the glass to the railing you could have.

Be sure to sell or give away that beautiful old railing and not throw it on a heap. I happen to like it. But indeed, it might look better in black. The railing you have posted instead gave me some shudders. Quite a contrary style and not one I'd welcome in my home. Way too modern for a ranch home, is what comes to my mind. If you are really going to get a new railing, I like the one Judy proposed, although I wouldn't want it in white at your place. Perhaps in black and the railing that matches the wood of the stairs? Or maybe something like this?

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