Stop me from finishing my whole house with polyurethane

[fallstoclimb]

A sight exaggeration, but I just took a class at our local woodworking shop and made a coffee table from scratch (so fun!!) and now am looking at the wood in the interior of my house a lot differently. Is a lack of polyurethane or other wood finish why the high traffic painted areas are not lasting?

For instance, we have the original built in wood pantry in our ~1900 house. I touched up the paint about 18 months ago, but within a few months it started looking dingy again because it is such a high traffic area.  Would the move be to repaint and then throw a coat of finisher (what kind??) on the whole exterior?  Picture attached.  Also! Hard to see in the pic, but we replaced one of the latches with a smaller one and now there is a gap all around it. Can I fix that with wood filler before repainting?

I have similar questions about our (again, painted) wood banister. It is painted white, but the top railing turns gray very quickly from people touching it as the climb the stairs. Should I repaint and then finish this?  Are these things all going to look weird and shiny if I cover them with finisher?

The cabinet I think needs to be sanded before being repainted. The banister I am considering stripping and trying to restore some of it to stained wood, but I am also concerned at how time-consuming that might be. Also, neither of these things can be moved outside for sanding/stripping. What is the best approach here, any advice?  I have tried some googling and got a bit overwhelmed but if there is a specific resource I should be looking at please point me that way!

[SunnyDays]

Doesn't polyurethane tend to yellow over time?  That wouldn't be good over white paint.

As far as I can see, the pantry is mostly just dirty around the latches where people would put their hands to open and close it.  A good washing might do the trick instead of painting, which will build up to a thick coating if you're doing it every 18 months.  (It already looks a bit thick, so if you plan to repaint, then maybe strip the paint first.)  If plain dish washing soap isn't strong enough, try a Magic Eraser.  That gets all kinds of marks off stuff.

Wood filler should work for that tiny gap.

There's no getting around the amount of work a banister would take to strip, but if you're going to do that, then stain it instead of painting and it won't look as grungy.  But otherwise, clean it frequently.

Also, did you use paint meant for cabinets and trim?  That could make a difference.

[yachi]

Yes, it looks like it's dirt from where people put their hands.  You can discourage hands from interacting with the painted surfaces by adding knobs, handles, or plates - these will tend to make the user touch those items instead.  Is the paint hard to clean?

[fallstoclimb]

Great point about polyurethane yellowing!  I am getting the sense that may not be a good solution here in general.  I do also have paste wax which I may add as additional protection after repainting, unless someone advises me not to.

I attached a closer up picture of the problem area.....but I am now wondering if this was more of an issue of the many layers of paint that are apparently on here.  We moved in four years ago and have only touched it up once since then, but I cannot account for the 100+ years of occupancy prior to that! 

So it sounds like the move is to strip, sand, wood fill, repaint, and wax the cabinet......and save the banister for another day. 

[SunnyDays]

That paint looks very thick!  I would definitely strip it and sand.  You might find that there is really nice wood under all that and decide to just stain it instead.  It will be a fair bit of work, but for solid wood, it's worth it.

[Sibley]

Wax can absolutely add a protective finish..... and it will at some point need to stripped. Not a fun process.

Fallstoclimb, daily life results in daily wear and tear. Things require cleaning. Things don't stay perfect. Try some dishsoap to clean those spots, it'll help with the oil buildup from hands.

[AMandM]

If there's 100 years of paint, there is almost certainly lead paint. Be careful with the stripping, especially if there are children around.

[lthenderson]

I absolutely add a couple coats of wipe on polyurethane on any cabinets I paint. Yellowing polyurethane is mostly confined to oil based polys and cheap water based poly. But there are many different higher quality water based polyurethanes that will dry absolutely clear and remain that way.  Without poly, especially on high traffic cabinets, things get dingy and cleaning them all the time wears out the paint which is what you are seeing. Another newer option is polycrylic which has a lot less VOC's, much safer to work with (not flammable) and dries faster. But it is thinner than polyurethane and harder to apply on non-flat surfaces without getting lots of runs and drips. Also, if you apply it too thick, it can get a milky appearance which might not be an issue with white cabinets but is definitely an issue when applying over stained wood. For polyurethane, I usually go with the Minwax water based wipe on poly. I have also heard but never used General Finishes wipe on water based polyurethane is pretty good too. Minwax also makes polycrylic too.

As for the bannister, unless it is a very simply shape, i.e. round with no inside corner features, I wouldn't bother stripping. Stripping outside corners or rounded features is pretty easy. Stripping concave features or inside corners is extremely time consuming, much more time consuming that stripping is in general. It also depends on what kind of wood is underneath it. If it is open pored, you can strip all you want but until you remove wood down below the depth of all those open pores, you are going to see spots of white paint forever. If you want to leave the bannister railing painted, I would clean it well with a degreaser and soap and water and then prime and repaint it. As for a top coat, poly is a good choice especially if you want to clean it often to remove grunge. On my bannister, I apply a paste wax to it about once a year. The paste wax doesn't harden so it has a softer feel that I find more pleasing on objects I touch frequently and it has a softer look when viewed in the light. But paste wax is a wearing finish so it needs to be reapplied from time to time.

[lutorm]

I would think a high-quality alkyd paint would be as durable as a polyurethane coating. And once it starts looking worn, a new coat would restore it. It seems more likely to me that an old, worn transparent polyurethane would cause visible issues unless completely sanded down.

We're completely stripping everything in our house to get rid of the old, flaking lead paint. It's a significant pain and needs to be done with some forethought to not get everything contaminated with lead. If the existing paint is in good condition, I'd definitely go the route of cleaning it with TSP and repainting, unless you know you're going to live there for a long time and you'd like to just know that you got rid of the lead once and for all.