I have been painstakingly scraping off the old paint---various coats of white, cream, orange, green---can I stop now? :-) Anyway, I wonder if I can go ahead and paint over the little paint that's left over since they're in the nooks and crannies and are very hard to get to. Unless anyone has suggestions on how to easily remove the last bits? I have used heat guns, paint removers, banged the rails with hammer but there are the stubborn areas that I can't seem to crack. What is the next step? Primer??? Anything special for this kind of material? How about the actual paint itself? I am thinking of painting the surrounding walls somewhat reddish and will black paint on the rails/balustrade be a good idea? Matte? Gloss? This gets high traffic so I'm trying to get away from white...please help???? TIA, Lea

Sandpaper! Do what you can to get those last bits smoothed down at least so the edges feather into the bare metal, otherwise it's just a future flake waiting to happen (and it will show and look funny, too).

We replaced our wrought iron rail, but before that I painted it with an oil-based paint and it held for 9 years (even with Christmas decos ;) Just my .02, but I don't care for super high gloss (bounces a lot of light). For easy wiping, how about semi-gloss or even satin (depends on the brand paint you use).

Tx Moonshadow; I will be sanding this afternoon then. I thought about chucking the whole thing too but the small kitchen remodel that we started in October has now become a major renovation and dominoed into three other areas so I guess the stairwell area will just have to wait.

We replaced ours because DH put in a hardwood floor, so we opted for oak rail. Stair rail replacement was a bigger deal than we thought it was going to be (but of course most jobs turn out that way, eh?) So if you've got huge projects paint is a good solution. Black is so versatile, I think it will look good!