Wood Banister

 

When we installed our laminate floor and new wood stair treads, it was very evident I needed to do something about the clashing wood tones going on. Here is how it looked.

Here are the details of how we did it.

 

Materials Needed:

• Power sander (I guess not necessary but helps save a lot of time)
• Dremel rotary tool/detail sander (again not necessary but helped quickly sand the smaller areas)
• Sandpaper
• Stain
• Top coat like polyurethane or poly acrylic
• Primer
• Paint

1) Sand. You will need to lightly sand everything, even if you are painting. I hand sanded the areas I was painting, but used my power sander on the areas I wanted to stain. For any area you plan to stain, you need to remove the existing varnish and stain. If you don't get down to bare wood, your new stain will look blotchy.

Below you can see where the spindles are lightly sanded compared to the handrail that is completely sanded (lighter wood).

2) Wipe it down. You need to remove all dust particles and debris with a very slightly damp cloth or a tack cloth.

3) Stain. We wanted our banisters and stair treads (I'll likely post on how we installed the new stair treads later) to match our flooring so we took a floor sample to Sherwin Williams to have them stain match the color. I used a foam brush to apply the stain. Because I wanted it dark, I let it sit for a few minutes then wiped off the excess with a rag. The banisters needed only one coat of stain. Make sure you always apply and wipe off excess stain in the direction of the wood grain.

4) Prime. I waited to prime the spindles until after I stained the posts and handrail because I didn't want to repaint any areas that stain may have dripped on. I put on two thin coats of primer.

5) Paint. Apply thin coats of paint. It took two to three coats. I applied it with my go-to brush, Premium XL Polyester Tight Spots found at SW.

6) Apply top coat. I then used polycrylic to seal and protect the stain. You could certainly use polyurethane which is a bit cheaper, but I've found polycrylic a little easier to work with. I applied one coat then lightly sanded, with very fine grit sand paper. I then wiped it down and applied a couple more coats. I didn't worry about sealing the white paint because I wanted to be able to touch it up later if needed. 

Here are the products I used:

Primer: Zinsser, Bullseye 1.2.3 primer

Paint: Behr Premium Plus, Ultra Pure White--right off the shelf, not tinted.

Stain: Sherwin Williams--stain matched

Top coat:  Minwax, water-based polycrylic

Before

After