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This week I buried a couple concrete supports and then installed the posts for the bottom end of the railing for some steps leading up to a 10'x20' deck we're building (at the family cottage), and then put on a couple rails (the ones that the balusters will be mounted to). Oh, and that was after attaching the fascia on the side of the stair stringers (before using carriage bolts to secure the posts to the stringers...) so the spacing I had planned on would work out correctly. Still need to put on the top railing boards, and chop off the top of the posts so they are the right height, but the last of the hard work has all been done for the stairs (getting those concrete supports in exactly the right place was a big pain... some bedrock and a drain pipe got in the way of the second post support :!: ).

Only one significant task left (some short steps on the other side of the deck), and then the deck project will be done except for making a small gate, installing the remaining fascia and applying the wood preservatives to all the posts / railing / balusters (we've used composite decking, so that won't need any treatment...).

BTW, it's taken about 4 years of puttering away at it (in season... late summer and early fall) for us to get this far... My Dad actually owns the cottage, and is bankrolling the project while I'm the engineer / architect / foreman / lead worker (Dad, at 79 years young, is a second set of hands, plus an excellent "how-to" resource for the project... despite being a retired management accountant, he's been a "handyman" his whole life).

(I bet you weren't expecting an answer like that... :P ).