LESLIE: Dan in Washington is doing some work on the outside of the house. What can we do for you today?
DAN: Hi, yeah. So, I live in a split-level home and the entryway, when we bought the house, they had placed a railing and guard rail that goes both upstairs and downstairs and it’s metal and painted black.
TOM: Right, mm-hmm. Pretty standard.
DAN: Our decoration – our interior decoration of the living room within that area, as you immediately go upstairs, is kind of a rustic type, I guess, decorative pattern.
TOM: Right. Mm-hmm.
DAN: So we were curious as to what color we could essentially paint the railing or if we should just pull that and put in like a wood railing and that sort of thing.
TOM: You know, those cast-iron metal railings, Leslie, don’t have a lot of personality to them.
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Character. Well …
TOM: Any options short of replacing it?
LESLIE: Yeah. How comfortable are you with faux painting if it came in like a kit? Because I mean you could do something pretty rustic maybe – now when you say “rustic,” are you thinking like country or lodge-y? I mean there are so many ways to define rustic. But you could …
DAN: Yeah, it’s a more lodge type.
LESLIE: You could go with something that almost has like an antiqued patina; maybe like, you know, a patinaed copper so you get that copper sort of teal-y mix. There’s a good company called Modern Masters and if you search them out online, their website might even just be ModernMasters.com. And they have wonderful kits that create these beautiful looks of metals and finishes that you might find something there that works with the tone and the feel of rustic-ness that you’re trying to get in the space. And the kits aren’t that expensive and they’re really easy to do yourself if you have a little bit of confidence with it. Plus, at that point, if you hate it, you’re leaning toward replacing it anyway; you might as well give it a go.
DAN: Yeah, yeah. No, that’s a good point. Thank you very much.
LESLIE: Oh, it’s our pleasure.
TOM: You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
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