Anyway I can find out how much space is between the stairs going up and the stairs going down? The space horizontally... Does that make sense? We are putting in a similar setup and originally had 12" and now only have 8". We will NOT be able to see through our stairs like these so I'm trying to figure out if the 8" space will look odd. This is our only staircase from the basement all the way to the second floor... The idea was you could see all the way to the basement from the second floor.

Thanks in advance.