We had stairs visible from the front door in the Florida house.  The oak and white balusters aka “spindles” made me CRAZY.  It felt out dated, a little country and it just bugged me.  Sometimes we fixate on things that others would never notice and make little sense- this is an example!

By the time we moved out I had painted them, painted them again, knocked them all out and enlisted a handyman to creative this X detail.  The X was white then black then we moved….

Here is a pic with all of the oak balusters painted white.

After a while I decided that was too plain so the top of the rail and post went black.

Time went by and I decided to knock out alllllll of the balusters.  Boy was that liberating!

I decided on a fun X detail and isn’t it so CUTE?  This was inexpensive and soooooo much more interesting than the run of the mill set of balusters.  I thought I may need to add horizontal steel cable for code but it wasn’t questioned or an issue during the sale.

I originally painted the X white and loved all the contrast.  Note the door is black too but when we staged to sell I painted over all of the black interior doors to appeal to anyone and everyone.

I discovered that dust seemed to settle on the white woodwork and ultimately decided to paint it all black.  That was my final decision…and then we moved.  Had we stayed who knows??!

The irony of it all is I moved into a house with 8x more sets of balusters.  I know EXACTLY what I’m swapping them out for when the money tree grows, I win on a scratch off or some miracle happens!!!!

If you are looking for alternatives here’s a fun idea!