Oh the banisters. They have been a headache! Here is a fuzzy picture from the home listing a year ago.
At first we were going to strip and re-stain the handrails but once we got a good look at them we knew that wouldn't be a good long term solution. They were really beat up, loose and horrible looking. Not to mention they were not our style.
This is after the flood/before the new floors...
In August Vince told us they would start working on the banisters on a Friday, so Thursday Dave took out the balusters out (he told them he would help out with the demo)... Then Vince brought by the new newel posts that he bought at Home Depot.
They weren't what I had asked for and it turns out they wouldn't even work- for a bunch of sizing reasons...
This is when life got really bad with Vince. We don't know details but we know he is getting a divorce and there was a lot of drama going on in his life which meant we were really on his back burner.
We found a painter and had him come in and paint the bottom parts... Looking back, I totally could have done this. I assumed that he would fill holes/dents etc... But no. Oh well. It was done.
And then we waited... Dave put ropes up to sort of block off the wide open spaces, but it was still dangerous. Thankfully our boys are really good and cautious and so they were ok. When friends would come over for boys club we wouldn't let them go upstairs... we haven't had people over for dinner, friends over for play dates forever!!! It has totally put me in a funk...
Sometime during the fall- October I think, we bought a used fancy paint sprayer and Dave painted the newel posts in the garage.
So this is how we lived from August-January 8.
That is a long time!
That is a long time!
Mid-December Vince sent over his long-time friend Jason and Jason's co-worker Cody. They went through the house and Dave talked about the situation Jason and Cody have their own business, do all of their own work (except for electrical/plumbing etc...). Jason and Vince went to high school together and Vince asked Jason if he could help him out and get this project done. We were really impressed with their knowledge and everything they said. We were excited to get going! They promised us that once they came to work they would work everyday until it was all done, no coming and going and making it last forever. They needed to finish up another job and then it would be our turn... Then Jason broke his wrist :( Vince tried to find someone else, and we are thankful that he didn't because we would have been willing to wait for Jason and Cody anyways.
January 8th they came!
Lots of other hiccups to get through, wrong parts ordered (by Vince) but work was happening.
Once we had all of the right parts, they got to work.
Deciding how tall to make the sleeves for the newel posts...
(You can see the blue rope that Dave had tied to all of the posts.)
Thursday they opened everything up and got to work.
After one day there was such an improvement already :)
They worked on the family room side and once it was done they worked on the entry areas.
This was their workshop in our garage
This is how they left it for the weekend.
Back to work on Monday.
We had to get more stain from the floor guys- the extra stain they gave us in July wasn't good anymore.
They took the handrails off again and stained them.
It was freezing outside and in our garage, so they stained them in our living room- they set better if its not cold.
Once they were dry and had their first and second coats of polyurethane on them, they put them back on.
These guys were so precise, making sure everything was straight and level. Turns out the handrails that were in the house were lower than code, so they made sure they put them at the correct height so they are to code now.
They worked until late on Tuesday night, not leaving until after 9pm. They said they would be done and Tuesday and they were. That means so much!
They are done. We love them.
What you see when you open the front door makes a great statement compared to before.
We picked a larger newel post for the bottom one and think it looks great.
We were a little worried that since the handrails are red oak and the floors are white oak that they would look different- and have red in them, but they don't and are exactly how I pictured them looking. Whew!
101 Balusters
7 Newel Posts
~ 48 feet of handrails
I can't even express the weight that has been lifted off of our shoulders with this being done.
We are SO happy.
Of course we have a long list of projects to do still, but WE can do them. We can choose how fast we do them, and pick everything out ourselves etc. We loved Jason and Cody and their work and years in the future we will use them to do more work, but we are taking a break from hiring people! (Except for our new roof that we will be getting thanks to our home owners insurance and the hail storm that happened last June... It just needs to warm up before that can happen!)
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