After doing the two-story staircase hallway walls, we looked at the railings on the staircase and thought we should freshen them up a bit. We had freshened up the steps molding and posts with our favorite picket fence white semi-gloss paint but realized that we hadn't touched the railing in years. We both are not big on staining, so this was a challenge for us. We were both nervous about the project. So, we decided to take the process of transforming railing slow in hopes that will make it look even better.
Here is our transforming railing before photo.
Stain wood on railing tutorial
We taped up the railing and sanded down the existing railing. We used 100 sandpaper (the coarsest we had).
We decided to go with staining instead of painting. I used the above items for this project.
We stained the railing twice and sanded with 150 sandpaper and used a tack cloth to clean off the railing between staining. This photo is without the polyurethane coat.
Then, a day later, we used polyurethane on the railing. Two coats and sanded with 220 sandpaper. We used a tack cloth to clean the railing between coats.
The big reveal! We love it! You can still see the grain through the onyx stain. However, you can't see it in this picture. It took some time to do the entire process, but it was worth it. We love it!
Hope this motivates you to improve your home even if you have never done a project before.
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