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In our renovation, the middle room was always very dark as it has no natural light. We have removed the wall between that room and the kitchen which helps and on the other side, we have removed the plasterboard and exposed the staircase posts with the aim to leave some of it exposed, while plasterboarding the left hand half of it. the idea is to get some of the light from upstairs, down into that room. Also, as the space from the lounge into that room is rather tight, I want to remove completely the bottom-most post and instal new structural posts slightly further back to hold up the beam above. As this is structural, I did ask an engineer to check it was okay while he did the calculations for the kitchen rsj's. However, I cannot understand his report at all. This is the stairs as it was when we took off the platerboard. You'll notice that the 'posts' and cross pieces are all just tree branches, with the bark still attached. I guess there were no building regs in those days! Picture above is from the stair side and you can see the beam at the top which supports the upstairs. Here is a plan which I hope explains what we plan to do. The new plasterboard will cover the three old posts and the bottom triange between old post 3 and the bottom of the stairs. Between 'old post3, new post 1 and new post2, we plan to get glass from the balustrade companies if possible to allow light through and also, when entering the room from the front, it will open up the middle room in a much nicer way than previously. if the glass is too expensive, then good old fashioned spindles will have to do with a handrail. I am hoping someone can interpret the engineers report and confirm what I think he is saying, which is using C24 timber, using a 75 x 112 mm post, it must be within 1.2m of the wall. But I have been to a timber merchants and TPerkins and neither have C24 timber. I shall try another timber place tomorrow but it would be useful if I knew exactly what the report says we should do. Any advice will be gratefully received. ignore the first 10 pages as that relates to the rsj's for the kitchen which have all been done. And any suggestions of where to get the right timber posts. they need to be reasonably nice as I want them to be seen, maybe painted. AB2782-01 for pillar.pdf ab2782 calcualtions for pillar.pdf Picture of stairs as they are now.