Sometimes there is so much I want to tackle, I can’t decide what to do next.  My solution:  I do whatever is free.  And since Chris is working late every night, lately I have been picking projects that I can do easily by myself.  In steps the stairway railing and her little sister, this divider between the dining room and family room:

The free-ness is thanks to Benjamin Moore giving out free pints to everyone and anyone until June 30th. You just have to “like” them on facebook and print off your coupon and take it into any store that sells ol’ Ben.  (Hint: we printed off, like, five.) For the railings, I knew I didn’t want black and white.  Albeit traditional, we have quite a bit of black and white accents already and I wanted something that would compliment that, as well as, mesh with the dark wood floors we are dreaming of eventually getting.  We agreed almost instantly on Ben Moore’s Steel Wool.  I decided to start on the smaller railing (the divider) because I wanted to make sure we would like the look before tackling the larger staircase.  It took WAY longer than I expected.  Sanding, cleaning, and painting and then a light sand and a second coat on this took 3.5 hours.