A while back I repainted the door levers and closet pulls in our house matte black (→see that post).
Now it’s the stair handrail’s turn — the brackets are an unmistakably late-90s/early-2000s gold-ish tone, so I’m spraying them black using the same approach.
While I’m at it, I’m also replacing the rail itself with a lighter-toned wood.
Total cost came in around 10,000 yen.
Before and after
Before
The original handrail. Goals here:
・Lighten up the wood color of the rail
・Get rid of the gold tone on the brackets
After
The finished result.
・New wooden rail
・Brackets sprayed matte black
The whole stairwell feels noticeably lighter now.
Here’s how it went, step by step.
The wooden rail: ordering and finishing
The wood I ordered
I ordered north pine (red pine) glulam round bars online from Marutoku Shop.
For English readers, similar pine glulam handrail round bars are available on Amazon: Search Amazon for wooden handrail round dowel rods.
Material: north pine glulam
Dimensions: 35 mm dia. × 2 m × 4 bars
Finish: unfinished
Price: 1,820 yen × 4 = 7,280 yen.
Varnish (matte clear)
Sanded to #240 first to even out the surface.
I planned to finish in matte clear varnish. Reading the can carefully before opening it…
“Note when using matte clear: if you brush matte clear directly onto bare wood, the resin soaks in but the matting agent (a fine white powder) is left sitting on the surface, and can look like white mold. Coat with gloss clear first to seal the wood, then apply matte clear as a topcoat.”
Wait, really? So the proper sequence is gloss clear (or some sealer) first, then matte clear. I had been skipping the sealer step on every previous project…
The instructions said to use gloss clear as a sealer, but I didn’t have gloss clear on hand — so I substituted sanding sealer (a water-based undercoat for varnish). It serves the same purpose of sealing the surface so the wood can’t soak the topcoat in unevenly.
Brushed sanding sealer onto the bars.
Once the sealer was dry, before brushing the matte clear topcoat I knocked the surface back lightly with #400 sandpaper.
Then brushed on the matte clear varnish.
After it dried, I went back and laid down a second coat.
That’s the rails ready.
Next page: removing the existing handrail → spraying the brackets → installing the new rail.
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