Here is a before and after picture of the staircase. It was too expensive to replace the wrought iron 1970's railing, so I lightly sanded it, and used black tremclad. It cleaned it right up and looks much better.
I also sanded and varathaned the exposed 6 inches or so of stair tread on each side, and painted the riser with the trim colour we are using around the house.
We felt for safety and to finish it off, that we would continue with the same carpet that was installed upstairs, as a runner down the center of these stairs. The railing goes not only up the stairs, but along the hall as well, so there was a lot of tremclad to do!.
