Painting the banister.

Saint_Chris

s-i-l is learning to be a painter and decorator, he's just nearly finished decorating our house, and i'm very pleased with it, today he did the landing, we did it in super fresco wall paper, and he painted 1 small wall as a feature wall, and the other a lighter colour and i'm really pleased with it.
We've also done the downstairs in super fresco and painted the walls a light colour, but instead of doing a painted feature wall, we've done it in a lovely purple flowered wall paper.

Our house is open plan and we have spindles on the stairs, now these are stained a light oak colour, s-i-l has said that they are dated and i should paint them white in keeping with the colour of the walls and the fact that the house now looks modern, and my daughter and sister also said just that the spindles stained are dated.

I do actually like them, and the colour of them, but now as i'm looking at them more on the landing they just seem to stand out.

So i was wondering should i bite the bullet and have them painted white?

BobQ

Saint_Chris wrote: »

So i was wondering should i bite the bullet and have them painted white?

I have had my bannister and spindles varnished/stained for 20 years. I have just painted them for the same reasons although I did not do them white but a similarly bright off white gloss colour. It looks so much better. Go for it, especially if sil is doing it for you!

Mojisola

Saint_Chris wrote: »

I do actually like them, and the colour of them, but now as i'm looking at them more on the landing they just seem to stand out.

So i was wondering should i bite the bullet and have them painted white?

Who cares what's "fashionable" or "dated"? If you like them as they are, keep them like that.

Saint_Chris

thanks for that, i may look at going for a off white colour then.

SailorSam

If you paint them there's no going back.
Once they're done if you decide you liked the light oak better, it's a lot of hard work to remove the colour.

Saint_Chris

I know there's no going back, but the more i look at them, they do actually seem out of place.

oldskoo1

We have just painted our house, we like very subtle shades of white / cream, a lot of people would be horribly bored with our tastes. We add flavour with accessories and furniture

But aside from that we have painted the banister in both our last 2 houses an off white. Both banisters were are brown colour and with nice light clean walls the brown banisters totally detract from the new paint work by sucking the life and light out the stairwell

It's a pig of a job. Needs a light sand, dust everywhere and the coverage is important. Needs at least 2 coats of a decent satinwood and possibly a light sand in between coats or if gloss, a good undercoat to start with.

HarriDec

To successfully go from a stain/varnished surface to an opaque paint such as gloss you must either strip the existing coats in their entirety or use a high adhesion primer such as Zinsser BIN. Not using the correct primer will invariably lead to the paint chipping/peeling in future.

McKneff

don't go for gloss, eggshell or satin is much softer and nicer.

The gloss soon wears off gloss paint.

keystone

Don't know why for the life of me but I read the thread title as "Painting the Hamster". :eek:

Cheers