Carpentry and Woodworking - to stain or to paint???

I want to either paint or stain my handrails and banitser in my house but i dont really know what to do. My house has biege paint and white moulding and doors, and sage green carpet fairly new. But i have dark wood furniture and i have this ulgy orange wood banisters. but i am going to eventually put in wood flooring in the walnut color. Should paint the banister white like the trim and mouldings or stain it the same color as the floor i will eventually get?

Welcome to the forums! Of course it is your preference, but mostly the balustrade can be painted the same color of your remaining trim pieces in the house, but I would opt to lightly stain and polyurethane the handrail. Mainly because paint will wear off and become quite obvious over time, whereas polyurethane, although it will wear, can be recoated without an obvious "over paint" or spotty look.

I agree with Larry, painted handrails require to much cleaning and repainting. Stain/poly will look better a lot longer.

The maintenance issue has been covered. I'd like to recommend stain and poly just because it causes me so much pain when people cover good looking wood with paint (don't even get me started on the "distressed" look).