I've had these banisters in my house for ages that had this really poorly done ugle brown/maroon paint. My wife got fed up with them and decided to strip and sand them.
Wonder of wonders, what's under there is some kind of dense hardwood with some great grain to it.
Now I'm trying to decide how to finish it.
My initial plan had been what I always do: basic stain plus a wipe on poly of some sort. Pretty good, pretty easy.
However, this is significantly higher quality wood than the cheap pine I usually work with. It was suggested to me I look into a Tung or Danish oil, and I've now fallen down a deep rabbit hole of wood finishing.
Any preferred finishes that emphasize grain for pretty wood in high traffic areas?
Hardwax oil like rubio, osmo or odies seem to be the favourites when it comes to higher end stuff, you can apply maintenance coats and/or repair fairly easily from what I heard.
Whatever you do, you should do the same with the handrail, it'll clash of they don't match
That's part 2 of this project. We will see, the hand rails are not in great shape. May replace, or paint them. The banisters have more visual impact anyway, and are a significantly nicer wood.