Our house was oak everything and most of that had to go. I spent far too long figuring out how to paint and stain our stair banisters. After looking at soooo many other blog posts it was clear I needed to use the below gel stain. This stain requires barely any sanding which was ideal on my shiny oak handrails.
Before
The first thing I did was lightly sand and tape everything up. I decided to stain first.
I did two coats of stain using foam bushes and an old t-shirt to wipe down any excess. After staining I realized the bottom needed to be painted. The amount of dust that accumulated in a few days was NOT okay and the white would hide it better. So again I taped everything up to get ready to paint the banisters. This is by far the worst part of the process because there are soooooo many banisters. But I did it just whenever I found time and it was well worth all the painting.
I did one coat of primer on everything and then used a white trim paint from SW.
The gel stain ended up being perfect as it is dark but still shows some of the wood grain.
Some more painting of banisters and then you are finally complete. Definitely an easy project but more time consuming than one would hope.
Since these pictures the floors have been changed out and match the banisters much better…now time to pick out some pretty carpet for the stairs.
Close Enough DIY 