Staircase restoration inspiration please

[wanttoworkbut]

This is my hideous but grandly proportioned staircase - well, grand for a plan terraced house. I have dreams of a runner and stair rods. Am I mad?!

House has been unsympathetically modernised over the years. One layer of underlay stapled down, the next nailed. Lots of gloss paint. Turns out carpet grippers are the very devil's work to remove. Please inspire me with beautiful transformations, even better if you did it yourself!

Why would it be mad to want a runner and stair rods? You’ve done the hard part! I painted ours Inchyra Blue (Victorian staircase with a turn) and got this Roger Oates runner.

Agree with @SyrupTopped it's not mad at all! We've done this before - at one house in 2012 we also had a Roger Oates runner with brass rods (fitted the whole lot ourselves despite it being a winding cottage staircase) and at our last place (400 years old, where we painted our walls Inchyra Blue 😉) I glued wallpaper to the stair risers.

I'm currently in the process of doing something similar in our Georgian cottage which the previous owner had butchered in the 1960s/70s including replacing/relocating the staircase. At the moment I've done the stripping and painted it in Little Greene Lamp Black, but haven't decided whether to use a runner or not.

@wanttoworkbut I no longer have pics of the first one, but here's some pics of the second and third....

We did this in our old house- we did have to buy the stair rod ourselves- Amazon I think for the carpet fitters to install.

Mad because I am creaky and tired I guess. Anyway I have hit my knee with the crowbar so have to stop!

They look amazing @SyrupTopped . [Rushes to check out Incyra blue]

I do fancy the paper on the front of the tread @LibertyLily looks great.

Ouch! Good excuse to put your feet up and do some pleasurable research though 💐

I was looking at F&B stone blue for the woodwork anyway.

After two coats of paint stripper on a test area FML.

Hi @wanttoworkbut
I really wanted the runner and stair rod look but the stairs were beyond stripping and painting.
Ended up going for this look which felt warm and a bit modern.
walls are Dulux Perfectly Taupe. Woodwork is Fusion Cast Iron.
Covers a multitude of sins.

This is gorgeous, and so practical.

So a darker colour then... hmn I might look for darker blues. Does it hide all the dints @Andthenthereweresome ?

I had a charcoal stair carpet in my last house. It looked mint, despite being cheap. We were in a high wear phase of life, with children and dogs. Hard floors were working brilliantly, stair carpets were trashed so fast.

The Fusion paint is quite a matt finish, so doesn’t reflect and along with the dark colour it really disguises all the dings. The staircase is about 100 years old and pretty gouged. When it was white, you could see every mark and now you have to peer up close.
Also feels very brave and trendy 😀