Work In Progress

I have recently pushed myself into a project that was very intimidating to me.  Mostly due to the fact I have no prior experience with any of it.  The project included stripping wood, sanding, staining wood, and varnishing wood.  I knew exactly what I wanted the finished project to look like, and I had to do it as frugal as possible. 

Here is before:

First was stripping the wood work. This was the messiest part, but quite the learning experience. Once I found my groove, it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be.  After the banister and all the end posts were stripped, each spindle needed primed and painted.  I used a one inch sponge brush to apply one coat of primer and two coats of paint on SEVENTY SIX spindles.  This was not difficult at all, just tedious.  As a reminder, the side of the spindles and banister that can be seen most often is on the backside of the staircase, in other words, to paint, strip, sand, stain, etc. you can only do so by leaning over the banister or by an extension ladder (a step ladder was too short).  Therefore, most of what I did, I did by hanging upside down over the banister.  What a sight, fortunately there are no pictures of this, lol!

And along the way, there were some boo boos...



I accidentally spilled a gallon of chocolate colored paint and then a couple of weeks later, near the same spot, I dipped a majority of my hair into the stain and drizzled it on the carpet.  Being accident prone, this did not surprise my husband (who is a neat freak) one bit.  Luckily new carpet had already been picked out.

This is what I will leave you with.  Carpet will be installed Friday, and then I will post the pics of my final foyer project.