Not too long ago I put together a little post for
. I knew I wanted to do something with my stairs, as you can see from my "Before" photos, the white risers don't do too well against shoes and dogs in our house. Even when I scrubbed them they would never truly be clean. The railings were also a wierd bulky shape and the paint was peeling off regardless of frequent touch ups. I taped off the risers and painted them a mid-tone grey, it's a nice contrast with our wall colors and the wood steps all while remaining neutral in the very likely situation that I decide to change the color of the walls at some point. To keep them from staying TOO neutral, I bought new banisters (you can have them cut to length at Lowes, and are only a couple of dollars a foot) and painted them a lovely mint color. Banisters like mine are so easy to repaint or replace since they are strait, so I figured why not? I also took down the rod iron railings to the basement and spray painted them white so they would look a little cleaner and blend better with all the white trim. I'm so happy with how they came out, our house looks cleaner already!