If you are going to do this... don't move afterward

When we moved into our home (7+ years ago) we had a list of a few minor things that we wanted the builder to fix.  They were small repairs that didn't seem terribly important at the time. But when several small things either never get done or don't get done right they slowly become more and more important.  Well, our banister was one of those "small things" that our builder never got done.  So, after all these years we decided they probably weren't going to get to it and thought we would tackle it ourselves.  (Side note- Of course we knew a long time ago that the builder wasn't going to do it, but it was a project that seemed extremely overwhelming to me so we kept putting off until we had to take care of it. If you are like us, you know what that means, we put it off until we decided to try to get our house ready to sell and then we had to get it done. Why do we do this? Big projects like this should be done for YOU to enjoy not some stranger who is going to buy your house.  Never again!)

Refinishing the banister was a huge project.  It was tedious and took a lot of time. Thank goodness I am thrilled with the final product but I would have been even happier with it if it was my family that was able to enjoy it.

The problem-  Our banister was never properly sealed.  The wood was bare and after time became very dry and started to yellow and crack. 

 

  

Each spindle had to be sanded, as well as the handrail and every other nook and cranny.  The lighter spindles in the picture below are the sanded ones.

  

The top half of this bigger post has been sanded.  See how yellow the wood had become?  Bleh.

After all of the sanding was done we taped everything off.

 Then we started rubbing the stain on each and every piece. 

 

At this point, I was not happy with the color of stain.  It looked splotchy and sloppy.

So, I let it dry and added another coat of stain.

And then another, and just for good measure...one more. When all was said and done,  I was so happy with the final product! Yay! I think the dark stain looks so sleek! (Try to look past the walls that were being prepped for paint.)

And then... about a week later the for sale sign went up in the front yard.  Like I said, never again!