What do you paint stairs with???

[Thehusbandsatcricketagain]

I am thinking of ripping up the stair carpet & painting them instead but what do you paint them with ???? what type of paint is hardwearing enough to wthstand high volume traffic & children forgetting to remove wellies ect when using stairs.
Any suggestions gratefully received,am thinking of a light grey or off white colour but am open to suggestions !!!

I'd use gloss and then put a matt varnish on top too... The only thing is painted white stairs are incredibly grimy, you'll need to wash them all the time.

We used a ronseal floor paint suitable for wood, concrete etc. Only comes in a few colours though, we've got the creamy stone colour which looks lovely.

We used floor paint with a runner up the middle, looks ok, but northern is right, my god the amount of dust that gathers there and you can see it really clearly!

One thing I saw recently in a mag was the suggestion of using non slip paint as a strip up the centre if kids are if relevant age for this to be an issue.