Home renovation projects are a great way to spruce up your home. Some projects are quick DIY projects that can be completed in a day or a weekend by homeowners while others may take weeks to months to finish and require professionals. Over the next few weeks, I am going to be sharing several of our recent home renovation projects - some small and some large.

Our first renovation was our staircase. This was the first of several remodel projects to come. We were tired of the dated look. We thought about adding black metal spindles and darkening the railings but didn’t want to spend a lot of money since we had so many projects we wanted to do. So we looked for ideas on Pinterest and decided to paint. Here is the staircase before we started with black spindles and oak railings. A bit dated, don’t you think?

The first thing we did was to clean the railings, then we lightly sanded. After a good wiping and vacuuming, we taped off the floor and the wall. We used a gel stain on the railing. As recommended, we used General Finishes Java Gel Stain from Amazon which cost about $30. One thing that surprised us was how long the gel stain took to dry so plan accordingly! We set up fans at the bottom and top of the stairs to help with drying time. We had to remind ourselves every time we went up or down the stairs not to touch the railings! Easier said than done!

61-wNfZDQ6L._AC_SX679_.jpg — Gel Stain

We applied the gel stain with a small sponge brush. When we were finished, all we had to do was throw them away.

Because the spindles were black, we had to prime twice, Then we painted them with a coat of semi-gloss white paint (and a second where needed). We used a 1” angled paint brush for this. The semi-gloss paint is the same paint that we used for all our trim in the house. We had the floors redone as well so we did have to do some touch up but that was fairly quick and easy.

After applying the gel stain and priming…

Here is the finished project with the new darkened floors.

So what do you think? We still want to poly the railings. Overall the job was very easy and we are so happy we did this. In fact, we wondered why we hadn’t done it sooner!

This is part one of several posts on home renovation. Next project I will be sharing is our kitchen renovation. We did a complete renovation.

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