How to stay cleaning while staining

In just a few short weeks we'll be renovating our home. Well, new floors and a counter top. That actually doesn't sound like a lot. It will however make a huge difference in the style of our home. We are doing quite a bit ourselves so I am sure that there will be plenty of material to put on here. One thing I am starting with is staining our banister. Currently it is your typical oak and fairly yellow in color. We are going a bit darker (is almost black a "bit"?) I saw a pin on Pinterest showing that you can use a polyshade to stain it without having to sand first. It is worth a try.

In a later post I will show some before and afters to let you know if this worked. If it does I can see myself staining everything in my house! This post is for something I came up with to make the job a little easier. I have already laid down the first coat (it suggests 4 coats total) I did this with pieces of an old T-shirt. This was a real mess. I tried using my hand in a plastic bag to keep stain off my skin. I had trouble getting into the nooks and crannies. The excess material undid all my "go with the grain" by depositing left over stain onto other areas. And stain does not exactly just wash off. BTW, magic erasers are not for removing stain from said skin. Ouch!

So here I am the following week ready to tackle another coat and hopeful knock it out over the weekend. Here is the trick/tip I discovered: I purchased latex gloves, then I purchased those cheap $1 knit gloves you find everywhere this time of year. Do you see where I am going with this? I only did one hand so I had one free to do other stuff. So with the latex glove on first, the knit glove second, I was able to dip my hand into the stain and rub it all over my banister with the greatest of easy. My fingers got into every nook and cranny, I easily followed the grain, no excess fabric to get all over my self. It was flawless. Highly recommended method!