DIY STAIRCASE MAKEOVER UNDER $100 _ Updating Oak Banister

Hey everyone, welcome back to my channel. My name is Kristen and today we are finally starting another huge makeover at my parents house. You have seen me transform room after room in this house and now I really want to focus on their 90s staircase. So this staircase is original to the home. It's the only orange oak wood left in here and I think it really needs an update. So I really want to tie in the dark woods in the kitchen, the trim around the home and really accentuate this staircase and make it look beautiful. So I'm going to be doing this entire makeover on a budget. You guys know I love doing budget friendly DIY home improvement projects and this one's going to save us thousands of dollars. So I'm going to be painting and staining and doing it all myself and it's going to make such a huge difference. So if you guys have a staircase like this and you've been really looking to update it, I hope this video gives you some inspiration and tips on how to do that. If you enjoy watching, make sure you give this video a big thumbs up and hit that like button and make sure you subscribe to my channel for more room makeover and home improvement videos. Let's go ahead and jump right into it. All right, so let me tell you guys the plan behind this staircase. So we're all on the same page here. I really like these images on Pinterest that I found that have a two-tone look to them. So it's a white and a dark wood. I think that will work perfectly in here. I'm especially going off of this picture that I found. I love that they have white spindles, a dark railing, and it really has a nice mix of the two. So I'm going to be doing dark wood railing all the way up here. This is going to be a dark walnut color. We're going to do this dark walnut as well. These side stringers I'm choosing to do white to match with this trim here and white spindles and this little piece up here I'm choosing to do dark. So I think it's going to be a really nice mix and tie together all of it. The plan is to really tie together the rest of the woods in the house matching that dark wood trim piece right here, the dark woods throughout the kitchen, and really make this entire house a lot more cohesive. This staircase might be a little bit more challenging because we are working with carpet and we're not removing it, so I'm just going to have to get really close to the carpet there without making a mess and making it look really crisp and clean. So those are just little details that I have to think about when doing all this, but I think it's going to make for an amazing transformation and really bring this staircase out of the 90s. So day one of this makeover is prep day and this day cannot be skipped. It's very important to the end results that you're going to get. If you want a really nice finish, you have to prep the staircase. So I'm taking off all of this oil and grease that might be stuck on here using cred cutter. It's a really good degreaser as well as sandpaper to take off the varnish that's on top and really matte it down so that you don't have this gloss anymore. So I'll leave all of these products down below in the description box in case you guys are refinishing your staircase and need to find these products. So now that the staircase is clean, I'm going in with my sanding block and sanding all across the railing and all the spindles and really getting into all the details of the wood. This is really going to make sure that the products that we use to refinish the staircase are really going to attach and grip to the surface. I'm also using a damp microfiber cloth to wipe off all the dust so that it doesn't go everywhere and we have a clean surface again. Alright, so the stairs are looking a little more dull now. I've sanded and cleaned them. Now I'm going to focus on taping. So I'm going to focus on taping the top of the spindles, the bottom of the spindles, so I can really get the railing without touching everything else. I'm going to be using this frog tape. I usually use this when I'm painting. I find it really strong and it's really wide. So it will cover more space without cutting multiple pieces of tape. All of this prep work kind of takes a while, but I think it makes for a better, cleaner job. It's day two of this makeover and today I'm so excited because we can finally get started with some staining. I'm going to be using the Verathane Gel Stain in the color Dark Walnut. And I hear that gel stain is kind of like the chalk paint of stains and it's easier to work with. You don't have to do as much prep. Like I know I had to prep, but I didn't have to totally strip the wood and sand down to bare wood. So I'm using it more as like a paint instead of a stain. So I'm not going to be wiping it off, I'm going to be letting it dry and doing another coat so that I get more of a full coverage look. This probably will need two or three coats and it's a 24 hour drying time in between. So this is going to take a while. It's kind of a longer project, but if you have the time and you can carve out the time to do this, I think it's worth it. So see how it's more of like a pudding consistency? It's way thicker than normal stain, so you won't have that drip and it will really grip. It's a good thing to open a window because it does get pretty smelly, but let's get started. So to apply this gel stain, I'm using a foam brush and I had to buy quite a few of these just because they don't really last that long. So I probably used three a day, but anyways, this gel stain is very easy to use. You just have to make sure that you get more of an even coat and you don't let big clumps of darkness kind of dry up there. So it's easy to move around, really easy to pull down the banister, and it's actually pretty simple. So I went in, did all the top, then I went in and did the bottom and really tried to make a smooth surface. I got my fan going, got the windows open, have all my ladders. I just finished doing the first coat of the gel stain where I want it. As you can see, the first layer of the gel stain, it's still see-through. You can see through it and it looks kind of streaky, but when you do a second layer and a third layer, it's going to look really smooth and clean. I'm going to start priming these stringer pieces of the stairs, so this side and the other side. I'm going to be using this primer here, and this is an oil-based primer, so this is really good for sticking to wood, glossy surfaces, and then you can use latex paint on top. So I'm just going to do a layer or two of this on the stringer pieces here, and then we can start painting tomorrow and doing more coats of the gel stain. So I let the first coat of primer dry for two hours and then did a second coat. This primer kind of feels like glue, it's very tough, but it really sticks and holds on to this wood. Alright, so it's day three of this whole process. Today we'll do the second coat of the gel stain so we get more of a solid finish that will really cover a lot of the orange tone coming through, and hopefully finalize that color before we do a top coat. Alright so this is day three of staining. I just finished the third coat on the railing here, and I really love the way it looks. It has great coverage, but you can also see the wood kind of coming through it, so it looks natural, doesn't look too painted. I haven't done this yet, so you can really see the difference between two coats and three coats, so I really love the look of three coats. I'm actually glad that this wood piece doesn't just continue all the way down the stairs because it's pretty difficult to get in between there. I would say this has been the hardest part, but the railing, super quick, really easy to do, spindles are pretty easy. Next thing we'll have to worry about is painting. So I think it's day four now of this staircase makeover. I finally have all of it stained where I want, it looks so good, it is such a crazy difference. That took, I think, three days in total, so maybe we're actually on day five of this makeover? I don't even know at this point. So now I can finally seal it. I'm gonna be using this polycrylic top coat, and this is gonna make it so much more durable and last longer. I got it in semi-gloss. Right now, the stain finishes pretty matte, so it kind of looks a little dull. I think the semi-gloss is really gonna make it look amazing, so this will be the final step of the staining process, then we can finally move on to the spindles. So this polycrylic is kind of like a milky consistency. It goes on and looks a little blue at first, but it dries crystal clear, it's really nice. You have to be careful with this as well so that you don't put too much on where it starts to drip or bubble, so just smoothing it all out and really trying to make an even coat is the best way to go. I'm using, again, a foam brush to get this all put on, that way I don't have any brush lines and I have a nice, even coat. If you're doing a similar thing to your staircase, just make sure you completely finish the railing and finish it off with a top coat before moving on to the spindles. I ended up doing two coats of the top coat to really make sure it's sealed. Alright, so it's been about two days since I did the top coat on all of the stain and it looks really good. I have this really nice shine to it, so it's nice and hard and sealed, and I can now move on to the spindles. So I have to remove all of this tape here, kind of flip it so that it's all around the stain, so that we have a nice, crisp line underneath here and all the way down the railing. Now that everything is perfectly taped off, I'm going back in with the same primer I used earlier, the cover stain primer, and doing two coats all along the spindles using this little angle brush. It's really good to use an angle brush, a smaller brush, to really get into all of these details. This is quite time consuming because spindles are really hard to cover. You kind of have to go back and forth from the front of them to the back of them, wrap yourself around the railing to really get into all those spaces. Just get that first layer on smooth because we're going to be doing a second one and some paint on top. Since this first coat took me like a whole day to do, I ended up having it dry overnight, waking up in the morning and repainting a second layer so I could move on and let it dry to start painting. All right, I'm back on the stairs. I have been here for too long now. Hopefully this is the final and last day of this makeover. Today we can finally move on to painting. I'm going to be using this Bare Alkyd semi-gloss enamel paint. It is really good for high traffic areas like this. It has a good finishing coat and it's like a hard finishing paint. So it's going to be durable, cleanable, and it's good for vertical surfaces like trims and doors. So I'm going in with a white, obviously, so it's going to be bright and clean. Using a foam roller to really get a smooth finish on the wood so that you don't see any streaky brush lines, as well as a foam brush. So after letting the first coat dry, I waited and did the second coat and it really did help because there was some spots around the stairs that needed to be recovered that you could still kind of see the wood through. So this was definitely worth doing. After the first coat, I was so tired. I wanted to go to bed, but I really stuck it out to get this done. Good morning, we're back on the stairs again. I really thought yesterday would be the final day, but I think that was hopeful thinking. Today we are taking off all of the tape and touching up all the areas that need to be touched up. I knew going into this that, you know, some paint would seep through, some stain would be off. So I need to just touch everything up to make it as perfect as possible. I can still see the lighter wood kind of popping out from underneath here. So I'm going to be using this to hold back the carpet like that and get in there with a tiny little brush. If you don't have something like this, you can use a ruler or a piece of plastic just to like hold things back and create a guard. But this is all the tiny little detailing that we're going to be doing around here. Almost likely just freehand, so that's not too much of a worry. Since we're doing all these touch-ups today, we might as well touch up the paint as well. There are some areas that are missing paint, looking really messy, and it's just dragging my eye right to it every time I look at the staircase. I actually didn't know what color this paint was. We didn't have any left. I think I got as close as possible. I think it's pretty good and will look so much better. So we're going to be touching up some paint today as well. I do recommend if you guys are trying to color match some paint, go behind this plate right here and you'll find some hanging paint left over and you can kind of peel some off without ruining the whole wall. I just finished all the little finishing touches to the staircase and I am so happy with the way it looks, especially when you take away all the paint that's been lying around for two weeks. This looks amazing. So I'm so proud of myself and I cannot wait to show my parents. They've seen me work on this for the past two weeks now, I think, so they just haven't seen it without the tape and all cleaned up and styled. So I can't wait to show them their new and improved staircase. They're going to be so happy. Let's go ahead and show my parents the big reveal. Okay, keep your eyes shut. You remember what it used to look like? Yes. Okay. One, two, three. Wow. Oh my. That is so much better. I can't believe it. Yeah, and it really jumps out just as you described it would. But it feels like somebody else's house. I know. This is incredible. That is amazing. You have the vision and there it is. And I love it. I know how challenging it is to do that type of work. It really is. Oh my goodness. That is tremendous. We've seen you working away. Wow, what a difference. Right? Like a brand new staircase. I know. Look at this when you're coming down. Yeah, tremendous work. Are you glad I did it? I love it. Yes, I am very glad. Yeah, look, go sit on the couch there. It just looks right. It looks the way it should have looked in the first place. No, but it's hard to believe- Wow. That it was even orange before. I know. Now it just makes sense. It looks very elegant. And it matches my floor. Matches the floor, the woods, the kitchen. It's like the whole look that it was meant to be. It's kind of Mediterranean looking, isn't it? Yeah. Don't you think? Yeah. Like that's what the floor was always meant to be and now you have a staircase going up too. Well, doesn't it look more expensive? Oh, for sure. Yeah. It's a real eye catcher when you come in the door. Oh, how nice is that? Couldn't figure out whether we should paint this or not, but you're right. I think it makes it brighter by painting it. You could go both ways, but I think it makes it look sharp and new. You had to do that. Yeah. There's no other way. It just takes it out of the 90s, you know? Wow. See how I even fixed all the little marks so it makes it look cleaner already? That looks great. So that makes a big difference, right? Everything. I fixed that corner. Look at me color matching. Fixed it. Yay. What a great job. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you for letting me work on it. I know a lot of parents wouldn't let them do this. Oh, anytime. Thank you. Anytime. Thank you. Love you. Love you too. That was great. We're so lucky. All right, guys. That's it for today's video. I hope you guys enjoyed watching this huge staircase makeover. I hope this video encourages you guys to get started on your staircase. If you have anything similar, I know if I can do it, you can for sure do it as well. So if you enjoyed watching and love this huge transformation, make sure you give this video a big thumbs up and hit that like button. And make sure you subscribe to my channel so you don't miss any more room makeover and home improvement videos. I have so much more to do, so make sure you're here to see it. Click the red subscribe button down below and make sure you guys have your notifications turned on so you never miss the upcoming videos. Love you guys so much and I'll see you in my next one. Bye.