We are in process of replacing the orange/yellow oak woodwork in our house with painted wood. Lots of painting happening.

We haven’t figured out a solution to this stair case. It’s the first thing you encounter when you come in our house. The tricky thing is how it’s constructed—there are no newel posts, the spindles are all just bolted onto the skirt boards. Most design ideas I’ve seen have posts, and adding those would either narrow our staircase (if we put them on top of the treads) or look weird (if we bolted them on the sides).

I saw the idea below, which I think would work from a construction standpoint, but I don’t know if horizontal spindles are allowed, and I’m nervous that the 2x4 rails would look cheap and not be sturdy.

And ideas?