Bye Bye Balusters!

Major changes at my house today! The balusters are gone! In case you are not familiar with what a baluster is...it is the spindle thing between two rails, or in our case, wall openings. (You can see them in the background of this picture.) These were quite the rage in 1978 when our house was built. I have hated them the entire 10 years we have lived in our home. My husband liked them. I finally won!! There were two half walls between the dining and living rooms with these, and one half wall dividing the eating area in the kitchen from the family room. The worse part was the three doorway sized openings between the living room and the family room. Ugh! Filled with the nasty balusters it just really dated the house.

So today I finally convinced my husband they had to go. We are painting our woodwork white, and I was not about to paint those things as well. It took our son and him about an hour to remove all the balusters, and the hardware used to secure them. Reading up on them it talked about how they are screwed into place...well not these...instead they had pounded three or four nails into each end of them...what a mess!

Now I have to decide how to handle this open space. The half walls are a non-issue, they will be left as is. With the balusters gone it really opens up the area. But the doorway sized holes are another matter. It is a little much to leave these open, and I don't want to completely wall them up either. Our house is dark and we need the light to be able to pass through or it will be darker yet. So I am wondering...if you had 3 door size openings spaced about 8 inches apart along your wall (the 4th opening is an actual doorway)...what would you do? I may not take your advice...but I would sure like to hear it!


~Marla


Update 8/29/11 
Here is what I REALLY want to do...after I finish painting the trim white.

 How would those look in the spaces?