Painting over damaged banisters

[jpjeffery]

Hello

To say our banisters need a lick of paint is putting it mildly. I'm not sure I have the energy, time, or skills to strip back the paint and do the job properly, but we do need to do something to stop them looking so, well, crappy.

This Flickr album demonstrates some issues I have:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/9332168@N02/albums/72157680453893325

One idea we had was to just strip back the paint to show off the wood, but you can see from the photos that the quality of wood is inconsistent. One post looks like it has some lovely wood under the thick paint, but the not only does the other post not look like wood at all, but the top doesn't even look like one piece. That seems to put paid to the show-off-the-wood idea.

So, will just painting over look OK, or still, well, crappy?

And is there ANYTHING I can do to stop that stupid, but still lovely, cat from prising off the paint?!

TIA

Jeff

 

[Doggit]

Paint the banisters, and get a scratching post for the cat, and a catapult for when he goes for the banisters again.

 

[jpjeffery]

Paint the banisters

Okay.

get a scratching post for the cat

She's got one, and does use it...along with lots of other things around the house.

...and a catapult for when he goes for the banisters again.

Noooooooooooooooooooo!

 

[Chri5]

Each spindle will be about 2 hours work (strip, sand, prime, uc, tc).

Cheaper to get them taken out by a chippie, sent to the local strip / dip and refitted.

 

[Robbie uk]

Cheaper still to just buy new spindles !

 

[Chri5]

Cheaper still to just buy new spindles !

Not a bad shout, but I bet those are a unique pattern, and getting them new would be a visit to a turners workshop, and that must be £30 (absolute guess) a spindle x whole staircase.