I have a trap door in the floor of a small 10' x 12' Cupola in my 1890 colonial revival house. The cupola is currently used as an office. The door has a railing around it for when it is open. I have just had the floors stripped of paint and need to decide what to do around the base where the railing dowels. The railings just go directly into the floor and for many reasons we don't want to try and finish the floor around the dowels and to the lip of the floor. Thus it needs to be painted. The question is color. The railings are all going to be painted white like the rest of the trim. My stair treads are brown. So when the door is open if we painted that area of the floor white all the way around the "top" step would be white. If we did it brown, I worry it would look funny when the door is closed if the door is also painted white, but if I paint it brown I worry it would be too much dark color in a small space. Photos attached but unfortunately hard to tell because it is already being worked on.