BTW, photo above is not the color of the stairs

Please post a picture of your own stairs

Forgot to mention, this is new home construction. I can send you what it looks like now. Ignore the green circle.

No, if you are painting the rail it will not look like wood. If you want it to look like wood you stain the wood. Poplar is difficult to stain, but you may be able to get a close match to the stairs using a gel stain, but you won't have much opportunity to test the colors/ play with the stain to get it right unless you order a small 1' piece in addition to the rail so you have a test piece.

If painting, you really need to consider the overall aesthetic of the home. You could paint the rail black, white, gray or match it to a stair runner or paint the risers and the rail in a color.

Here is a link to a blog with multiple ideas.

https://designertrapped.com/stair-railing-ideas/

Poplar actually stains quite well with care and will look like cherry when stained properly.

No paint looks like wood get the poplar stained better yet do the handrail in the same wood as the treads and black for the baulsters a nice classic look not sure the reason for the gray at all.

Is it too late to change the railing from poplar to the same as the treads? A stained handrail will look nicer longer, than any painted one will. To me, it would be worth the extra cost. A hand rail is important part of the stairway, and something you will look at every single day, and I doubt you will be happy with the poplar handrail with the stair treads. There are other things, to cut the cost of, if you need to, but, no cost cutting on a stairway which is a prominent feature in your house.

Poplar stains beautifully but has no grain- meaning it can be almost any color but can’t really dupe for a really grainy wood like oak. I certainly would not paint it unless you wanted black to match the iron. Though if I wanted that I would probably stain the poplar black and poly it because it would look more custom and feel better (paint gets gummy on a handrail)

@millworkman - We are talking to an OP that obviously has never stained wood before and didn't know if you could paint wood to look like wood.

Saying Poplar stains well with care is based on your level of experience and may be bad advice when someone has never stained or worked with wood before.

I use binary math to do comparative data analysis every day. I have been doing it for 40 years. I can look at a binary value of 10010111 and know that it equals 151. I also know how to use the values to determine duplicative values and prevalence of specific combinations of values. I forget that others don't use binary math on a daily basis and when I tell them it is as easy as 1+2=3 they think I am out of my mind. To me it really is that simple. 151 is representative of 1+2+4+16+128 skipping the values represented by 0s ( 8,32,64 ). The 8 bits provide 256 unique combinations.

It is every bit as easy as getting a nice, even stain on poplar.

Just in case the OP wants to give staining poplar a try this is a nice video. I would still highly recommend getting a test piece before staining the new handrail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZE88nqFpww

I would really like the stained look but to have it stained costs $2000+ additional just for labor alone

Also, is there a stain grade and a paint grade red oak that needs to be specified to purchase?

If you can purchase the red oak unfinished and stain it yourself that would be your most economical solution without having to worry about the trickiness of staining poplar.

I would still order an additional short piece for practice.

I think we'll tell our builder that we decided on red oak unfinished and my hubby will do the staining. He agreed to do the job! Thank you everyone 😊

Stain the floor, treads and bannister the same color.