help! the underside of our kitchen cupboards appears to be cheap fiber or particle board that is flaking off onto the counter- -into the toaster & coffeemaker etc! likely years of moisture from use of appliances --degraded it, but now what do we do? it doesnt look like you can really paint it etc, it is basically turning to sawdust :{ please send ideas !!!

Here is the scenario, pictured below. One railing along the edge of the landing coming out from the wall, out to roughly the top step. This will be pretty standard, no biggie. A second railing will need to go between the up/down stairs, on that angled part. I've had one contractor come out so far for an estimate (wife is on me hardcore about getting this done), and the quote was roughly $2500. :wall: Not going to happen. My big question is how to do the stairs on the part that is going down. The contractor that came out said he's never seen one that came out angled like mine. He had a couple ideas though. What would you do there? I can't really use decorative balusters, because the ones that would go in that little triangle area would look pretty goofy being so short. He suggested maybe just using square ones. If you have a similar layout as mine, I'd like to see how yours is done. Thanks! The contractor said to put in a bottom rail here and not drill directly into the hardwood, since it would land pretty much right in the seam of the bullnose piece. True?