Painting wooden stairs

[IAmSheWhoMustBeObeyed]

have you done this?
Google has done me proud again and I am more confused than when I started investigating. So can someone tell me what paint is good to use- floor paint seems extremely limited in colours and I want bright colours.
If ordinary paint is used then what sealant to use- yacht varnish has conflicting advice about it. Would rather use a non solvent based one as we do all have to still live in the house while this goes on.
How do you combat slippiness if indeed it is necessary. Non slip tape again comes in a very limited range of colours. Some are rough- ouchy! There must be some more creative and attractive ideas out there but can I find them nope!
TIA

I'm sure there is a better way out there, but we just used gloss (white) and touched it up when needed. We used floor paint in our bedroom (white again) and it was rubbish - chipped and discoloured really quickly.

We've painted most of our floor boards, including the stairs. It's an interim measure so we weren't too fused about longevity or finish.

We did a couple of costs of big standard emulsion and then 2 costs of ronseal floor varnish. It looks ok and is mostly lasting, although has chipped in a few places. Our main problem is discolouration in places where stains have come through or where there are knots in the wood. If I was doing it again I'd do a first sealant coat, eg an oil based undercoat or a thin layer of dilute pva. The varnish also needs to be very thin coats.

hi - it worked for us and looked fab in the end, but quite a bit of work - we used fired earth emulsion, a lovely crimson/cochineal (?) sounds strange, but looked great. Then about 4 coats of their clear varnish ( it had no odour) - a tip is to do every other stair, and when dry, do the ones you havent, this is especially useful where there are children concerned!! - Im sure you know this already! We never found a way to stop the slippiness, they obviously are more slippy than carpets, but you just get used to them - they look great, and much less maintenance in terms of cleaning than carpetted stairs.

Right.
Prep
Ordinary emulsion.
Some kind of varnish.

That's great, I am excited now!

Ow glad you started this thread. We have varnished open tread wooden stairs and I wanted to paint them to get rid of the wooden colour but didn't know where to start.

Floor paint comes in lots of colour (not international floor paint their colours are rubbish)
Farrow and ball, little Greene, designers guild all have floor paint in any of their colours.
Little Greene is oil based the other two water based.
You will get a much more long lasting finish by using proper floor paint rather than emulsion varnished.

Also you will also have problems if you start mixing oil based undercoat with water based products on top.
If you use floor paint you can use the correct undercoat 1/2 coats, then top coat of floor paint 1/2 coats, you should not have any problems with staining etc.

I've just painted over my stairs with white dulux emulsion need to do another coat then clear varnish it didn't want to spend to much on paint as I'm goin to ace a stair runner down the center.