Decorating a bannister

[DewDr0p]

I live in a Victorian house with a lovely original bannister and I really want to decorate it for Christmas this year. It has a top rail and plain spindles.

Any thoughts? Garlands might be nice but how would I attach? Is there a rule of thumb as to how long the garland would need to be? The bannister is over 5.5m long! So maybe another idea would be better? I also don't want to spend a fortune.

If I were you, I'd attach your garland along the bottom of the bannister, rather than at the top rail; the reason being lots of hands will be holding onto the rail going up and down the stairs and will probably interfere with how you secure it. This looks good on the upward bannisters, but on landing ones this means your garland will be at floor level, so to keep costs down I would only decorate the stair bannisters and do something different for the level ones or leave them plain. Don't do wavy swags as they won't hang right, just go straight up the base. If you really want the garland at rail level it will probably mean screwing small hooks into the wood to tie the garland onto which I don't think you would want to do.

You can attach it by tying a ribbon around each section of garland and around a spindle, tying in a bow to secure. If you don't want ribbon visible you could use cable ties or green foam-covered garden wire, the sort you use to tie plants to supports without damaging them.

Or you can weave ivy and tinsel in and out of the spindles. Add ribbons, bits of holly, small baubles - let rip with your imagination! Metallic spray on some of the ivy can look good too.