Painted Hand Rail

After Alex painted the stair rails, we decided to paint the hand rail as well. I had a while to wait for the exterminator yesterday (routine checkup, no need to worry!). I decided to paint the hand rail! 
 

Where I got the idea: Myself?

Time Project Took: 90 Minutes

Shopping List:
Black Acrylic Paint
Cheap Foam Brush
Plastic Cup (to put the paint in)
Construction Paper & Painters Tape

 

Instructions:

1. Prep: I had extra construction paper, so I used that as my wall painters cloth. I thought I'd be able to slide the paper behind the bottom of the rails...I didn't have quite as much luck with that as I originally thought. But this worked quite well, and there was only a little bit of paint on the wall. 

Speaking of paint, I used acrylic, because that's what I had. The rail turned out fine, even though I maybe should have used wood. The paint is like $3 at Wal-mart. I used a plastic cup to put the paint in. With three coats, I used 1/2 a bottle. 

 This worked out just fine. The foam brush I used was a cheap back that came in a set of like 4 for $1. As I said, it worked just fine for all of this.

2. First Coating: I was worried with the first coat, because I didn't want to use too much paint, but it was a really thin layer. I painted underneath the rail and a little bit over the fixtures. The person before me had done the same, so I wasn't too overly concerned. This took no time at all to dry. Because I spent so much time getting every edge, I immediately went to paint coat two, which I applied a little more liberally.


3. Second & Third Coating: The next two coats went my much quicker (as I didn't spend a lot of time underneath the railing...its mostly black no one looks underneath your rail, so why spend a lot of time making sure it's super black!). I liked using acrylic, because when you do have spots like in the picture, a wet paper towel will clean that right up!



I let the second coat dry for for 10-15 minutes. The dog's tails had a little bit of black on them...they can't keep out of anything.

All in all it dried with a really nice finish. The third coat was mostly touch ups. All in all I'm really happy with it, and it makes the stairs pop next with Alex's other painting. We're going to do the basement rails too, but Tuscan Red to match the accents.