DIY: Painting Stair Railings & Fixing Color Mistakes

In this post you will witness my neurosis with color and getting it exactly right. During my recent stair railing makeover, I tried to step outside of my normal comfort zone and “warm up” my color scheme by bringing out the reds in my flooring. My house is an open loft style and the railing is visible from nearly every vantage point, including the kitchen, office, foyer, living room, sunroom. Each room flows right into the next. So in this case, the color had to be right.

My house had builder’s oak–everywhere! And when I say this, I mean that orangey oak that came standard with houses (and still does).

So here is my first iteration of trying to “warm up” my house with reds:

So, I freaked out a little and knowing it wasn’t done yet…I painted the spindles:

Ok. I didn’t like it. Time to start over…white primer is good for that. (I almost stopped here and left the primer on permanently).

Here is the final result:

I should mention this blog post was inspired by another DIY‘er whose blog I read yesterday, House Tweaking. I Iove the honesty among the DIY bloggers who are juggling multiple responsibilities, including mommyhood. So Bravo, House Tweaking!

Back to the railing, I chose to only paint and perfect the front entrance rail first…once I fixed that I proceeded with the rest of the loft railing. More pictures to come…but whew! What a frustrating process that was!

About these ads