Could you give some details of the house? How old, what style? I can't picture metal railings going with any sort of old house except a 50s-60s modern...several century old houses in my neighborhood have had the railings and columns replaced with metal, and every single one sticks out like a sore thumb!
A neighbor even has her main stair banister replaced with a metal exterior one, since the original owner didn't like 'traditional' stuff, and eventually convinced her husband to replace the original wood! Poor house even has parquet squares replacing the entire downstairs flooring.

The railings are trex, but the posts are the things covered in aluminum wrapping. Here is the picture:
{{gwi:40431}}From 2010-07-13

That pic is about a few weeks old. The railing is now completely white, the masonry is now all dark brown, and the stairs are all the cream colour of the porch floor.

This is just a short-medium term fix. In the medium-long term, I'd like to restore the outside of the house to what it originally was, although I have no idea what it originally was! It looks like a transitional style house (some Victorian and some Colonial Revival), built in 1910. It has some aspects of both styles. I'm sure much of the trim and different things were lost over the past 100 years.