It was a straight forward two day job to refresh a staircase and landing by re-painting the handrail, bannister and the spindles. A lot of spindles.
Courtesy of another decorating professional I had to start with some heavy duty degreasing as the previous painter used an outdoor paint on the bannister which started peeling off from the wood surface. Probably it is a good product to use outdoor, but not meant to be put on handrails. After this, I sanded down the whole lot, making sure I got rid off all the residue of the old paint.
Once this was behind me, I started to smoothen the handrails the best I could. The house is about 80 years old, this set of handrails are in for at least a few decades so I knew I can’t do a perfect job, but I tried my best and used a lot of wood filler to make sure the handrails are nice and smooth all around.
The next step was the undercoat. And this is where I started questioning was it a good idea to take on this job. The spindles already took me ages to sand, but it was nothing compared to undercoating. It felt like I am doing this forever and hardly making any progress. I was glad when I finally finished the last spindle as well. I left the undercoat to dry overnight.
The next morning I started with glossing. I already knew that the spindles will take me forever and ever to do, so I started there. A few decades later I was finished. With just the spindles. With the first coat.
It was by mid afternoon I finished with the second coat as well. I was quite excited to see how does the final result look, so I cleared away all the floor coverings and blankets. It transformed the whole staircase and landing area! The white handrails just blend in nicely in the room and it looks miles better than before. The customer was really happy with the work as well. It was a painful job at times, but really worthwhile at the end.
Screw it! 