Banister redo

After looking at several different blogs and posts about redoing banisters and stairs, I decided to redo my banister and hand rail.  Really - how tough could it be??  I couldn't stand the orange color of the oak.  Lesson learned - I will not be doing anymore wood refinishing any time soon.

Here is the before pic.  Ugh.

My first idea when redoing the banister was to just use Liquid Sandpaper to prepare for the new stain.  Basically this is supposed to take the gloss off of the wood so that whatever you do to the wood (paint, stain, etc.) will stick.  Apparently Liquid Sandpaper doesn't work when there are like 10 coats of glossy polyurethane on builder grade banisters.  I applied the Liquid Sandpaper and the first coat of stain.  Take 1 - failure.

Then I called my dad who is the wood refinishing guru.  He said that I needed to use a stripper (the chemical kind, not the female kind) to remove all of the gloss.  I went to Home Depot and chose an orange-smelling gel stripper - hopefully the kind that wouldn't kill of all us off with the smell.

So on to Take 2.  I applied a thick coat and waited for the recommended 30 minutes.  Then I started to scrape.  And I continued to scrape.  For probably 5 hours over the next two days.  My hand and arm have never been so sore and cramped in my entire life.  I had no idea that it would be so hard to get down to the bare wood.  I applied another coat of stain and waited overnight.

Well, needless to say, I did not get down to bare wood like I thought.  There were still several places that the wood looked weird and you could still see the old poly.  On to Take 3.  I scraped again for probably 3 more hours.  Finally satisfied, I again applied a coat of stain.  And finally I loved it.  I love the richness of the wood and the color - it matches my house SO much better!!

So after all of this, the lesson that I learned was that I will never again be restaining wood.  I will definitely repaint, distress, etc.  But restain - no thanks.  Although I loved the outcome, it was waaaay too much work.  I like projects that I can start and finish within a few hours.