Banister Makeover ~ It's Time For Paint!

Now I don't know why it is, but I absolutely hate showing pictures of my house

when it is being worked on.  But to show the end result and to get to the

good stuff, you have to show the before and after right?  So I'll try not to be

so shy when it comes to this in the future...  (*_*)

So here it is...the banister and railing.  Isn't it beautiful...no, it is not!  This

is the only remaining area of the old blonde oak finish in our house.  It does

not match anything anymore and as you can see it looks really beautiful with

our new (well, 2 years old) flooring we installed.  It is time for it to go away!

I got inspiration a few months back from Amy Chalmers over at Maison Decor.

You can visit her by clicking here http://www.maisondecor8.blogspot.com/.  She is

always up to something and she is lightning quick at it.  Several months back

she did a post on redoing her banister and stairs and it looked amazing so I

thought I would give it a go!  Yes Amy, I know...it's only taken me two or

three months to get to my project.  I just can't keep up with you!

So here you can see the stairwell and when I took these pictures I had already

started painting.  There is an oak ledge along the back wall and this shows it

with one coat of paint on it.  You may not be able to tell, but our walls are

actually not white (they look white in the pictures don't they), but rather they

are a very pale yellow.  The color is called Lotus Blossom and it has a nice pale

contrast to the white trim.

I can't wait to see what this post is going to look like all painted up!  In case

you are wondering what I did to prep the railings...I just roughed them up with

sandpaper quite well so the paint would stick and then started straight in on

the painting.  Everyone has their favorite paint, but I absolutely love Behr paint

from Home Depot.  It is thick, covers beautifully and does not run.  I am just

using a white interior satin enamel.  I was thinking of using semi-gloss because

of the wear and tear, but I just don't like the way it shines.  If this wears in

certain spots, I'll just repaint the spots that need it.

Here is a view of the painted railing.  Now don't ask me why I did it this way,

but I am doing it in sections.  The edge against the wall is all done as well as

the railing and now I'm working on the actual banister.  Who knows!?

Now that you are looking at this picture...do you ever do something in your

decorating that is really really dumb?  Well this really takes the cake!

We used to have this berber carpet upstairs and now that we have the

wood floors look at what is still on the stairs...gasp!...berber!  Now take

a look at the downstairs...the carpet down there is berber, but it's a really

nice berber (if there is such a thing!) and it is in wonderful condition.  Now

why oh why did we not carpet the stairs with THAT carpet instead of

leaving this silly berber on that was upstairs.  There's kind of a no man's

land thing going on in the middle...good grief!  We need to fix that here

pretty quick!  And don't even pay attention to those walls going down the

stairs!  Yikes!  That cottage green color goes down the walls and down the

entire hall downstairs.  If that isn't horrific enough, that color was actually

upstairs throughout our large open plan kitchen and living room.  Not pretty!

What was I thinking?  I really can't answer that!  (*_*)

So now I have painted one coat on the actual railing and banister and it took

me THREE hours to do it...don't you just love painting spindles!  Not really...

I will post more pictures when I have the entire thing finished in a day or two.

Until then,

~Stacy~