How to decorate this hallway/staircase?

[Blossom4538]

Hi all,

We recently moved and are decorating. We are thinking about painting stairs and having new carpet running up middle. Keeping floorboards in hallway. What would you do with the woodwork? Paint, paint parts of it, sand and stain? Wall colour ideas?!

Help appreciated, thanks!

I like the stair rail and spindles left as wood as it matches the stair treads if you leave as wood as well. I agree with pp I previously painted stairs white and they looked amazing, BUT they were impossible to keep clean (but then I have a dog) so they didn't look amazing for long. In the next house I painted the stairs black thinking they would be easier to keep clean, no they were not easier to keep clean. So with my current house I have carpet which looks ok but is very easy to just vacuum clean.
I would paint the walls. You can either paint two tone colours (above and below the dado rail) or take the rail off and paint one colour or if that's too much trouble then paint the entire wall incuding dado rail one solid colour.
Love your window!

Thank you!

I like the idea of carpet runner and stair rods and had this in mind. Looked under the carpet and the stairs are painted - would need stripping back or sanding a little and re-painting.

I think we are going to have to keep the rail, for various reasons, but would like to paint.

I think we would then need to pain skirting board - would stairs left wooden look odd with that?