Woodworking and Trim Work

I’m working on improving my woodworking and trim skills through several minor projects in the house this winter. I’m planning on replacing the railing on both stairwells with nicer wood and better hardware. Also, I’d like for the railing wood to be continuous, with smooth corners and no cutoffs in the corners. Here is what it looks like now:

You can purchase rounded corner sections that can be joined to the straight sections of wood, in red oak, which looks very nice when stained:

Before I do that, I’m learning how to get the right color and finish on the wood, and to join the corners to the straight sections seamlessly:

In addition to the railing project, I’m also learning how to do crown molding. I’m planning on putting crown molding in the guest bedroom first, since it is a fairly standard rectangular room that will be a good proving ground for us to see how it will look in the other bedrooms in our house. My goal is to match the stain color with the other trim in our house, which is a golden pecan stained oak. Crown molding is somewhat complicated to install, with the biggest challenge being cutting and aligning the corners perfectly. The DIY Network has a good tutorial video on how to install it. My goal is to achieve an effect something like the following: