Structurally, the banister is very sound. When we bought the house, the home inspector kicked every single spindle with his big boots. He was impressed that none of them budged. But, aesthetically, the banister is fired. Ultimately, I want our banister to be slide-worthy.
I had no idea when the banister was painted, so I decided to err on the side of caution and assume that the paint might be lead based. I donned a turtle mask and gooped on paint stripper.
The banister now looks like this:
Now I can sand the banister without fearing lead dust. Once I've smoothed the whole thing out, I can stain it. I'm thinking dark and shiny. Why dark? Well, first of all the stairs and upstairs are all stained dark. Secondly, there are places along the banister where giant holes were stopped up with wood filler:
This one is the largest hole. It's about the length of two of my hands:
That's ridiculous! How does anyone gouge a hole that big in a banister?! The Professor thinks that someone may have tried to remove knots from the banister.
The newel post was more difficult to strip because of its shape:
Finally, I'm not sure what to do with the whole newel post. Should I leave the lower half white or would it look better the same color as the banister?
I'm thankful that the balusters are in relatively good shape. I definitely don't want to strip all 58 balusters. It's bad enough that I'm going to paint them from their current off-white to a bright white. 58 round balusters. That's going to take a while...
Anyways, I eventually want the banister to be a very rich, dark shade. Much like THIS BANISTER from Centsational Girl.
I had no idea when the banister was painted, so I decided to err on the side of caution and assume that the paint might be lead based. I donned a turtle mask and gooped on paint stripper.
The banister now looks like this:
Now I can sand the banister without fearing lead dust. Once I've smoothed the whole thing out, I can stain it. I'm thinking dark and shiny. Why dark? Well, first of all the stairs and upstairs are all stained dark. Secondly, there are places along the banister where giant holes were stopped up with wood filler:
This one is the largest hole. It's about the length of two of my hands:
That's ridiculous! How does anyone gouge a hole that big in a banister?! The Professor thinks that someone may have tried to remove knots from the banister.The newel post was more difficult to strip because of its shape:
Finally, I'm not sure what to do with the whole newel post. Should I leave the lower half white or would it look better the same color as the banister?
I'm thankful that the balusters are in relatively good shape. I definitely don't want to strip all 58 balusters. It's bad enough that I'm going to paint them from their current off-white to a bright white. 58 round balusters. That's going to take a while...Anyways, I eventually want the banister to be a very rich, dark shade. Much like THIS BANISTER from Centsational Girl.
I agree! Rich, dark brown would be BEAUTIFUL! As for the newel post, I think either way would be fine! It looks great!
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