The project that took 2 months to finish! 242 spindles to tape and paint around!! It really was not a difficult project whatsoever, just super tedious, and we have soooo much stair railing in our new home. Not fun to makeover, but it is what makes our home feel so open and spacious!
From taping off each spindle, to the amount of coats of paint, caulking and sanding, it took us a while to pull this one off, but it was SO worth it! We saved thousands by making over these newel posts and railings ourselves rather than having it all replaced.
Keep reading to see how simple this makeover was and how you can do it yourself!
I started by painting all of the trim and handrails on the stairs. You can read all details about that HERE. The we grabbed a saw and started cutting off the little balls, that were not so very Blooming Nest style, on top of the newel posts! Many of the inso pics that I liked had very simple square newel posts. I knew we could achieve the same look by just removing these balls. Too bad they didn’t just screw off.
Next, we sanded down the tops of the newel posts for a smooth finish!
We bought a bunch of 1/2 half circle dowels from Lowes. We cut them to the length that we wanted them to hit on each newel post and cut the top end at a 45 degree angle, using a miter saw, for a softer edge.
Then, we nailed them around each post! This was so gratifying because slowly they covered up the part I didn’t love about the original posts! Three dowels fit perfectly on each side with a tiny gap in-between them that we would fill with caulk.
We made sure to nail downward into the post, making sure the dowel was fully secure. To finish them off, we caulked all the seams, wood filled the nail holes and painted 2 coats of Accessible beige!
Pretty simple, huh!? If you have a normal amount of stairs this would be such a fast and easy project to makeover your traditional newel posts. I love the modern vibe they bring to our home and I am a sucker for anything with a scalloped detail.
BEFORE & AFTER PHOTOS
You can read about the gallery wall on our stairs HERE.
You can read about painting our stairs HERE.
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