I am somewhat of a DIY-er. I’d probably be more of a one if I had more time as I find it very satisfying to find a home project that will make my space more unique and take that project to completion. Sometimes these are small projects such as painting a room and sometimes they are larger projects such as a built in bookcase/fireplace project I have planned.
Which brings me to today’s project. Ever since I moved into my house three years ago I have wanted to change the color of the stair banisters. The reason is that all of my furniture is dark wood such as mahogany or cherry and the banisters were a light oak or maple. One day while scanning Pinterest I came across several posts talking about a gel stain from
General Finishes. I tend to be cynic about most products doing what they say and I’ve tried other gel stains so I initially was skeptical. However, the more I read the more intrigued I became. Especially when I read I wouldn’t have to do much sanding. I really dislike sanding!
Normally I would have headed to Amazon to look for the General Finishes Gel Stains, but in this case I looked around for a local source. The reason was I wanted to get a small quantity of the gel stains for testing. I finally found it at
Rockler on Colorado Boulevard. I wasn’t sure what colors I wanted and the samples at Rockler were not on light woods so I picked up several half pint containers of Java, Antique Walnut, Georgian Cherry, Mahogany and Satin overcoat. They aren’t cheap but the stain goes a long ways so you don’t need much.
Next, I went to my local Home Depot to the flooring section and picked up 6 or 8 honey oak sample pieces. The honey oak color was the closest to the color of my banister. I want to put a plug in here for Home Depot as they provide flooring samples free. Lowes charges. I also tend to favor Home Depot over Lowes as I can usually find help there when I need it. I felt a little guilty about taking so many samples but I spend hundreds of dollars at Home Depot so whether it was right or not I used that as my justification.
When I got home, I lightly sanded each sample just enough to remove the glossy look and wiped them down with a clean cloth to remove the dust and lint. Then I put on rubber gloves and over the gloves an old sock. Why an old sock? I read somewhere that the sock would not add lint to the stain and it didn’t. However, I ran out of socks before this project was finished and had to switch to old cotton pajamas cut into strips. I would also buy large quantities of rubber gloves too if you are going to try this product. You don’t want to get this stain on your skin as it is hard to get off.
With my hands adequately cover, I dipped a sock covered hand into the gel stain and then wiped the sock across the wood sample to apply a coat of color to the sample. I repeated this with a new sock for each color so that I had one sample with each of my gel stain colors. I was pleasantly surprised to find the gel went on the wood evenly and had almost no odor, unlike other products I have used.
When I was done, I left the samples to dry for 12 hours. It is very important to wait the 12 hours. Don’t rush this step! I’ve tried adding a coat sooner than 12 hours and it always ruins my previous coat. The next day I covered up 1/3 of each sample and stained the remaining 2/3 and you guessed it- I left it alone for 12 hours. The third day I covered up 2/3 of each sample and then with another sock I applied another coat of gel stain to the remaining 1/3 for each sample. Again I left it for 12 hours.
The reason I did this was to see what one coat, two coats, and three coats would look like on each sample. The stains were all very nice but I realized from this experiment that none of the stains were exactly what I wanted so I did one more experiment on a sample. I put on two coats of Java and one coat of Georgian Cherry. This is the bottom right sample in the picture. This gave me exactly the color I wanted and I was ready to start work on the banisters.
To prep the banisters. I had to take an Allen wrench and loosen each of the wrought-iron caps so I could slide them away from the wood. I had thought I could then remove the wrought-iron rods. Unfortunately, the person that installed them had glued them in place so I had to stain up to the rods. After that, I used painters tape around all the banister posts where they were attached to a painted surface. Next, I lightly sanded all of the wood posts and banisters. For the crevices I tried Sanders Deglosser as I had read a de-glosser would help in the crevices. I really don’t think it worked that well but it didn’t seem to make a difference when I got to gel stain stage. I’ve heard Paso Deglosser works well but I haven’t been able to find it locally. Finally, I wiped everything down with a damp cloth before starting my stain routine.
When I was done with the three coats, I did two coats of clear satin. I know these banisters are going to get handled a lot so I wanted to give them a lot of protection.
I loved the results I got and I’m now a big fan of General Finishes Gel Stains. They are easy to use as the surface doesn’t need to be sanded down to raw wood and they don’t smell. The only drawback I saw was the drying time but it was worth it in the end. This little project gave me the confidence to take on an even bigger project – building and staining built in bookcases! If they go well you just might see a post on them in the future.
