Pirates and Petunias: Staircase Remodel

Thirteen years ago when we bought our brand-new house, I did not really have an opinion about the generic oak cabinets in our kitchen. With each passing year, however, I did begin to form an opinion: Bleh. Which makes my current opinion of our cabinets Bleh to the 13th Power.

About a year ago I began reading about a new product by Rustoleum called Cabinet Transformations. It is a kit that allows us "normal" (read: not particularly handy) folks to redo our cabinets with minimal work and supposedly professional results. I was, in the word of Baby Bear from Sesame Street, "intwigued." (I don't know what it is about the word "intrigued." Ever since I've had children who watch Sesame Street, I cannot say or even think the word without hearing Baby Bear say "intwigued." But I digress. As usual.) However, redoing cabinets was not something Steve and I wanted to jump into feet-first. Cabinets are pretty major: if we screw them up, there's really no taking that back. So I would furiously research opinions on Cabinet Transformations, read about how much everyone loved it, gather up my courage, and...get cold feet and forget about it for a month or two. And then I would repeat the cycle. Current state of our cabinets? Still generic oak.

Recently it came to our attention that our staircase (also generic oak) was looking a little shabby. Not only that, it no longer matched our floors since we replaced the hardwoods a couple years ago. Steve and I had begun to research replacing the handrails and newel posts. About the same time, I started up anew with the Cabinet Transformation research cycle and got fired up once and for all: I was going to take a leap and redo those cabinets! So I showed Steve the informational video, and he immediately said, "Why wouldn't that work on the staircase? We were going to replace it anyway, and if this works, it's a lot less expensive than replacing it, and it'll be good practice for the cabinets." This is why I married my husband.

Guess what? The opinions I read on the interwebs were right on. This stuff is great! No sanding or priming. Just scrub all the wood with a deglosser, paint two coats of specially tinted paint, paint on and wipe off dark glaze, and top with protective clear coat. It took about five days, including drying time in between coats and the odd evening or two I took off to focus on eating bowls of chocolate peanut butter ice cream. The worst part of the whole process was trying to keep all the hair from the World's Shedding-est Dog out of the wet paint.

So, I give you our new staircase, courtesy of Rustoleum ~~Cabinet~~ Staircase Transformations in "Harvest":

Before: grimy, worn oak