Brand New-ish Handrails!!!!

I felt like the announcer on the Price is Right when I wrote the title of this post.  "SUSIE SILLYPANTS SMITH, come on down.... What do we have for her today Drew????  Why... It's a BRAAAAANNNNNND Newish.... Handrail!!!!"  (insert canned applause and a lady jumping up and down in pure joy)

We have two handrails on our main floor that keeps us from falling from level to other level in our house...  they were functional... not really the most attractive, and our daughter can stick her entire body thru the handrails and so can our dog (he's not a manly dog by any means, but he LOVES me!).  SOOOOO someday this could become a safety issue. 

We priced out several different options...it was going to be around $2,000 for the replacement of 2 new handrails... um.... maybe not today... thanks...

I would really like something like this...

I found this photo on the House of Turquoise Blog.  She has a TON of great photos over there, be sure to check her stuff out!  A Def must check!

http://www.houseofturquoise.com/

 I love the mix of traditional and industrial, the straight lines of both the cabling and the ballisters.  I would like to have a runner something like this someday down the road...

However.... I digress into the deep depths of my imagination.... 

Back to reality...

This is what we started with...

view from the front door

view from our kitchen



view from our living room

 

Here are a couple of other websites that were part of my inspiration for our handrails... we debated between staining and painting... we went with paint...

Traditional Staircase - color/stain
Stain/Paint color for stairwell

Steps for the project....
Sanding the varnish off each railing, spindle, and balusters

Clean up dust
Clean up the sanded railings, spindles and balusters
Paint primer onto all railing, spindles and balusterss - 2 coats

Sand to make smooth
Paint Black Latex Epoxy from Sherwin Williams onto the tops of the handrails, and balusters - 2x
Paint White Latex paint on spindles and bottom trim - 2x
Touch up with itty bitty paint brush

Final photos montage...

Seems like it should take like 2 minutes to whip this all together huh???  HA!  This paint project took my hubby and I the majority of 2 weekends and every evening for 2 weeks.... 

But we are super pleased with the end results!  Amazing what a little paint can do in updating! 

Are you planning any painting updates in the near future?