Sunday was my birthday, and as crazy as it sounds, I wanted to finish some of the misc projects around my mom’s house as part of my birthday present. We decided to start a project instead. Painting the stair railing in the entry room.

I absolutely hated the oak banister that had been installed in the house when built. It really didn’t go with the new decor we were trying to build in the house. So we went for it! The original plan was to remove the railing, take it to the garage, and spray paint it. After about 3 hours, literally 3 hours, with zero success in removing the railing, we gave up and decided to paint it by hand. Personally I wanted to paint the railing black to add contrast to the room, but my mom insisted on white. As much as I hate to admit it, white was probably the best choice because it came out looking phenomenal!

After sanding down the railings, we began painting the banister white with Glidden White Semi Gloss Paint.

After 1 coat I had enough! I said “screw it!”, went to Walmart, picked up clear plastic painters tarp, and built a spray paint tent inside, around the banister and went to town. I chose Rustoleum White  semi-gloss spray paint. I didn’t want to make the railings look too glossy or too flat so I felt like the semi gloss would be the perfect balance between both.

It took us an hour to do one coat of hand painting with the Glidden white semi gloss paint, and after setting up our spray paint tent, we were completely done spray painting the whole banister in under an hour. I’m glad we ended up going with spray paint because the finish looks so much smoother than the hand painting was coming out.

 The white banister makes the room look larger and brighter. I love how it turned out. Now,  I can’t wait to paint the banister in the upstairs stairway! What do you think?