Ideas for stairs

[PeppermintCream]

Right, the stair carpet has to go. No amount of steam cleaning will rejuvenate it.

At the moment the carpet goes up two flights of stairs and is the same in the upstairs landing.

We cannot afford to recarpet everything, I was thinking about painting the stairs, but I'm worried about noise. I've seen some photos of stairs painted white on the vertical bits and dark wood in the horizontal.

How about a similar idea above but covering the horizontal bit (the tread) in some kind of rubber matting.

All ideas appreciated.

We have always gone for carpet because of the noise issue, but I do love the look of wooden or painted stairs.
I like the look when white on the riser (like this. I've seen lots of lovely interesting paint jobs recently (e.g., from houzz ), but I haven't seen anyone cover just the treads with something (aside from safety tread covers). It might be quite a fiddle/messy?

Thank you. That white riser look is the kind of thing I like. However, with three small children I don't think I can risk the noise.