Railing!

So I am in the (very long and drawn out) process of finishing the railing on my front steps.  I have been planning on doing this since I moved into this house about 14 months ago.  I hired this guy in January, and he has been slowly working on bits and pieces and driving me absolutely insane.  I am not in a hurry to get it done, but I was kind of afraid he was going to take my deposit money and run away.  This is a before picture.


Obviously this is not a recent picture since there is snow on the ground.  I took this way back when I thought the after picture would be soon after I hired the guy....

So today the guy calls me at work.  He started out asking me if I had noticed any settling of my house since he has last been out.  I was like um... no.  So he said that he built the frame out at my house last time (which he did) and that now it didn't fit.  I was like well...  not my problem lol.  So he said he would fix it but he wasn't sure if he would be able to finish it today.  He wanted to let me know that it was ugly and he didn't want me to freak out when I got home because he would come back and fix it later in the week.  (We are expecting bad weather tomorrow.)  Needless to say, I was slightly worried, but what can you do.  When I got home, I found this:


Please ignore the hose hanging out in the yard lol.  I am lazy.  Anyway- back to the railing.  I am pleased with what has been done so far.  Obviously I don't know what it looked like when he first started because I was at work, but I don't think anything is wrong with it other than a few paint chips from the installation.  I don't particularly love the black post things showing so much, but I don't know what much can be done about that.  I am going to have to grow some kind of bush there or something I guess.

He's not finished yet.  He still has to do the last part of the front side, and then that little short side on the back side.  However, I am just so glad that I finally have something for my money haha!  Hopefully he will come back again (and not in 4 more months) and finish the job!