I was 21 years old when I started my stair-building company, and in the 10 years I was in business, we installed over 7,500 flights of stairs. The majority of these stairs had an "over the post," or continuous, railing that was assembled from stock rail parts. Using stock parts, a continuous rail can be assembled to fit just about any stair configuration imaginable. The key to a successful handrail installation lies in accurately determining the height of the newel posts. Early in my career as a stair builder, I tried a number of mathematical approaches. Eventually, however, I realized that the easiest and most foolproof method involved making a full-scale section drawing of a portion of the
