Adventures in Railing Rivial

Sometimes I think I could write a blog entirely on our adventures in home improvement. Last November, we surpassed the 1 year point of home ownership. Some of the projects we've completed during that time include:

• Installing a new sump pump line
• Completely redoing our backyard (this could be multiple blog posts)
• Installing a fence along the backside of our property
• Carpet installation
• Sealing of lower level floor vents
• Painting multiple rooms
• Refinishing closets
• Selecting new appliances
• Installing a new entry way door
• My stairwell railing (bonus points for recency)

And I'm sure there are more projects I'm forgetting here. I've decided to occasionally start blogging again and share some interesting home improvement experiences. My hope is that some new homeowner might benefit from my learnings....or laugh at my learnings.

I'll start with our most recent project, which is still in progress. The new stairwell railing. Our home was built in 1976, therefore the stairwell railing was a now-unsafe wrought-iron railing. If my memory serves correct, it was one of the first things I dubbed "that's gotta go" upon first entering our home. Well, 15 months later it's gone!

What makes this once fabulous wrought-iron railing unsafe.....it is shorter than 36 inches and the spacing between the ballisters is greater than 4 inches. In other terms, a baby's head can fit through it. With our second round of new carpet coming through it was time to redo the railing.

We opted to use stain instead of paint for our railing. While it looks great, it takes time, space, patience and the ability to hang the ballisters for easy staining and varnishing. Our ballisters were hung on sheets of plywood attached to saw horses and the work bench. Each coat of stain took 24 hours to dry, followed by 3 coats of varnish (2-3 minimum dry time in-between coat), then 24 hours to dry after the final coat.

The most important thing I learned was ballisters will not all be the same size! We started with 36 inch ballisters for the entire project. However, the back ballister for each stair needs to be taller, due to the angle of the railing. Therefore, we also needed 39 inch ballisters for each step.

I'm a fan of this Menard's how-to video on this project: http://www.menards.com/main/howtoguides.html?id=138

Although, they are completely full of it when they say this is a "simple project". And I'm not the only person who thinks this.....during a Home Depot run for supplies, a friendly Home Depot Handyman stopped by and gave us the look of "you aren't doing that yourselves are you?" (note: we are familiar with this look from home improvement stores & neighbors) He mentioned to us redoing a railing is the second most difficult DIY project behind Crown Molding. Well fortunately, we won't ever be installing Crown Molding, so after this project it'll only get easier, right?

After the railing is complete, I'll give a final update on the project and hopefully I will continue to share my adventures. Maybe someday I'll share my adventures in concrete selection!

Cheers!