I can't stop stair-ing at our new stairs!

We decided to work on our stairs to the basement.  We'd like to put new flooring down there (big job) before Christmas (big holiday) and we're working up to it with baby steps.  And these stairs really needed an overhaul.

 Even Sarge looks disgusted by them!

 They were painted a drab beige and had stair pads that were kind of disintegrating right onto the stairs.  We needed to remove the old stair pads so we could upgrade.  We decided to paint the stair risers white and paint the treads in a dark coffee sort of color.

Of course I jumped the gun and primed the risers before I removed the stair pads. That's because I don't like to do hard things and removing the stair pads was a pain.  The staples were embedded in the wood and had to be pried out, then puttied over, and sanded smooth.  Somebody about 20 years ago really wanted to be sure those stair pads never got loose. When I finally got them off, the stair surface looked like this:

I spent a full day scraping, sanding, and prying to clear off all the treads...then I could paint.  

The treads are painted with semi-gloss "Barista," a Valspar color from Lowes.  Sounded like the perfect coffee-brown color!  I ordered some sisal stair pads in a boucle weave with black twill trim.

Tom got his staple gun out and shot some 1" long staples into the stairs to attach the sisal stair pads.  I love them!

 Oh, and I also painted the handrail black.

Did I mention I love them?  

When I ordered the stair pads I wasn't sure if I wanted one for the stair landing.  Here's the landing without a stair pad..

 So now I've decided we need a stair pad for that landing and I ordered that tonight. We'll be able to install that one in about 2 weeks.

We've been working on some other upgrades for the basement and hopefully I can show some progress pics soon!  In the meantime, I love these stair pads so I'll be happy with baby steps!
Here's a little before and after collage: