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.

Cable Knit Sweater Turned Pillow

Like many people, I look forward to Autumn when the weather gets cooler, the leaves change colour and it’s sweater weather. Last Autumn I was looking to add some texture and warmth to the living room with pillows for our wicker chairs. Realistically I knew that knitting pillow cases would take me longer than I’d want to spend on this project so I decided to use a secondhand sweater.

I was lucky and found this grey cable knit wool sweater and was able to stretch it out to make two breakfast pillow covers. The front and back pieces each became a pillow case and I finished the bottom zippered edge with bias tape and zipper.

If you’re looking to add some knitted texture to your living room this was a fairly quick project. Finding the right sweater is probably the hardest part.