We shared a few pics of the painted stairs project when we started staining new tread boards for the stairs (we would have painted our current contractor stairs but they were chipped from the last 3 years and were cheap chip board). You can purchase new tread boards from Menards. We used the dark stain used in the basement and it really pulled it all together. We knew we wanted to do white paint with wood stain as the colors for our painted stairs because it would match the white we have going on throughout our house and our upstairs stairs already has the two tone of white and wood – so it pulled it all together! This DIY project of painting the face boards white and staining the top boards and sanding them then poly-ing them – – made the biggest impact and saved us a bunch of money as oppose to carpeting the stairs or flooring them. It adds a lot to the space and looks great with our white and black retro schoolhouse sconce light at the top of it.