Refinished Staircase Banister Before & After

 

Sometimes a lot of elbow grease and very little in the way of supplies can have a huge impact. In this case, I’m talking about refinishing staircase banisters. This was something that I tackled early on because the honey oak colour was not my style.

My neighbour refinished her banister and this gave me the confidence to try it myself. This was a lot of work (especially since we have two staircases) and it’s messy but it was worth the effort!

I used leftover paint as a primer on the spindles followed by a topcoat of the leftover kitchen cabinet paint.

I chose a very dark, almost black stain for the railing. There’s a Canadian company, Saman, that I like to use because the stain is water based and it had the topcoat mixed into the product.

Kitchen Staircase

This photo is from when we first moved in and before any of my painting & moulding projects.

Here it is after using a stripper to remove the varnish followed by sanding. This is an important step because without the necessary preparation and removal of the varnish, the stain won’t go on the wood evenly.

This is the finished banister.

Basement Staircase

This is how the staircase that leads to the basement looked when we first moved in.  Here I started by painting the walls a lighter colour and then we added a large, statement light fixture.

This is the view from the basement.

The view from upstairs.

The finished banister.

If you look through previous posts there are lots of other photos that show the finished banister from other angles.

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Painted Kitchen Cabinets

When we chose this house one thing that I liked was the potential for some cosmetic improvements. The cabinets were wood and in good shape and luckily the counter and floor tiles were neutral greys.

I finally decided on which shade of white to use (Vanilla Milkshake, partly because of the name) and tackled painting the kitchen cabinets late in the evenings. 

Even with a single coat of primer the space already looks brighter and bigger.

At the end of the cabinets I added pine panelling to give a more custom look instead of the little plastic plugs that were originally there.

The only hardware that I changed was on the drawers because I really believe in working with what you already have and the existing hardware was classic and simple.

For a minimal amount of money (and many hours of work) the kitchen feels brighter and less dated. Of course there are several other things I’d like to add but for now it’s a huge improvement.