Solid Hardwood, Engineered and Laminate Flooring - Railings and floating floor question

I have a hallway leading towards a sunk in living room where I am planning on installing laminate flooring. I was looking at the wrought iron hand railing the other day and noticed that it is anchored to the floor in the hallway, through the exisiting carpet. I am assuming that this will NOT work with the laminate as this would stop the floor from floating in this area directly invloved with the railing (2" from edge of floor drop off into a stair well).

I was thinking about getting some hard wood 3/4" thick 6" wide and staining the same color as the floor and then securing the railing to this, but I am afraid that placing some real wood this close to the laminate will make the laminate look bad. If I did do this, would I go for a lustrous varathane finish or a matte finish? I was also thinking, my flooring is 12.3mil laminate and that I could use a router and groove out the edge of the "railing" plank and turn it into a 6" wide end cap and set the flooring into the cap with a 1/2" gap?

What else can I do?

I use a 5 1/4" Oak nosed landing tread (nosing) to mount the railings on. You would use an end cap or square nose reducer to make the transition between the landing tread and laminate.

Don't worry too much about the laminate looking cheap next to wood. It depends on the laminate. A high quality laminate will match up quite nice. A cheap grade of laminate is going to look cheap next to anything.

I've done jobs where a real high quality laminate meets an oak staircase that I also installed and you have to look pretty close to tell the difference.

Thanks JerryT,

I realized this after I Purchased the floor (oops :o ), and was then trying to come up with something, anything that would allow me to put the railing back without putting holes in the floor!

Thanks again,

Derek