Has anyone successfully lighten a dark wooden stair banister, aside from a paint job?

[mumfortwo]

We have a large stair case with what looks like very dark mahogany hand rail with painted spindles. In a light room it would look great but our landings are extremely dark and the mahogany makes it all even darker. A friend suggested painting it but I would prefer not to. Is there anyway a lighter varnish would work?

No, you'll have to scrape all the varnish off and start again. (If it is varnished - and if its mahogany, then it'll still be dark). Are you sure its mahongany and not pine with a mahogany varnish?

We have this too, def mahogany varnished pine though. I really want to change it but just know it's going to be a massive faff, paint for us as I think I'll get away with sanding and priming (which will be bad enough) rather than removing the varnish...shudder...

If you decide to paint it instead then you should have a look at Annie Sloan paint. You don't need to prep the wood first, just dust it and paint it. Then put some wax on after. The you can leave it quite a 'mat' finish or buff it to a sheen or a shine :)

We started to varnish ours. It was awful and varnishing on the vertical meant uncontrollable drips too.

We painted it white in the end. Made a big difference.

It is inexpensive to change the spindles and handrail and you will have a number of options to choose from - get a few quotes from local joiners.

myron is right. We painted ours before realising it isn't that expensive to change it all.