Banisters-to gooseneck or not?

These are our stairs before we started working on them. I wanted to show the turn to the second set of steps that we are making so the drawing makes sense.



Should we put a gooseneck going to the square newel post or not? My issue is, does the banister look weird being below the molding on the newel, or am I over thinking it?


Here are some pictures of them with and without. What do you think looks better?

Without gooseneck








With gooseneck

Re: Banisters-to gooseneck or not?

Personally, I don't care for the gooseneck. I think it flows better without it.

Re: Banisters-to gooseneck or not?

I am also currently redoing our banister and I'm not doing a gooseneck. I don't care for the look.

Re: Banisters-to gooseneck or not?

I'm leaning towards no gooseneck, but DH originally had them planned with a gooseneck and is only now mentioning this choice to me .

Re: Banisters-to gooseneck or not?

I vote no gooseneck

Re: Banisters-to gooseneck or not?

I think it looks weird with a gooseneck, plus I think it throws off your balance. Without the gooseneck, your hand stays at the same level the entire time you're on the stairs. With the gooseneck, you have to raise your hand to touch the top of the neck, then drop down to the rest of the railing.

Re: Banisters-to gooseneck or not?

for me no gooseneck.

Re: Banisters-to gooseneck or not?

Thanks everyone!!! We decided no gooseneck!

Re: Banisters-to gooseneck or not?

I just redid mine with no gooseneck, same exact banister.

Re: Banisters-to gooseneck or not?

We have a gooseneck but we have round newel posts. We like it because you never have to remove your hand from the bannister - you can slide it down, around the corner and then down the other side. Without the gooseneck, you have to lift your hand to go around the newel post.

If we had square newel posts, we may have decided differently.