Painting stairs and/or putting new treads in

[TooMuchRain]

We have just taken up the carpet from our stairs (hooray!) and are trying to decide what to do next and any stories wold be useful. Underneath it is MDF type stuff and so we can't decide whether to paint for the moment and see how we get on - we are a no-shoes house so the wear shouldn't be too bad. Or whether to put bamboo down to match the rest of the downstairs - the company do specialist treads to fit stairs. Or maybe cheaper hardwood and paint??

Has anyone tried any of these options?

PS I know from reading other threads that some people here are very very pro-carpet, but we really don't want that.

Hi - we've just painted our stairs. They are an off-white on the treads and the risers are all different pastel shades which we've used in the rest of the house - looks fab! If you Google 'painted stairs' and look at images there are some really good ideas there.

That sounds great - were your stairs proper wood?

I have just had ours re carpeted after two years of painted. When we moved in the carpet was grim so ripped it out, stripped and sanded stairs then painted them with proper wood floor paint. They looked great - for about three weeks. Then they started to chip - and scratch. We also had quite allot of small children slip on them (paint was proper non-slip paint). It was also very noisy! We are also a no shoes house, and the dog is not permitted upstairs, but we are a busy house with small children and it just didn't work!

We've always had ours painted, carpet just doesn't work in a household full of cats and small children IMO. We paint normal acrylic gloss white, wipe them down once a month or so and repaint every couple of years. Acrylic dries nice and quickly so it's a couple of hours to paint and then half a day to dry..

I'm not sure about MDF tbh. I didn't know stairs were made from that! We have an old house and took up the carpet on the stairs which was slippery and disgusting.

I am planning to paint ours a very dark brown with possibly a runner up the centre. I find that we slip much less on wood than on carpet due to the tighter curve profile on the edge of each tread.

The thicker the flooring, the larger the curve meaning you can place your foot on the curve much more easily, making it liable to slip. And the flat part of the tread is shorter too. I ALWAYS fall down carpeted stairs when we have had them.

I like the look of painted stairs, but we live in a terraced house, and when next door took their carpet up the noise from people going up and down was dreadful. Happily they must have thought so too, so the carpet is back!

I had always assumed all stairs were wood too! Ours in an oldish house but the position of the stairs was changed by the previous owner so I guess that is why we have this problem.

Our stairs are orange pine and need dealt with rather urgently. We already have the carpet and underlay, but the rest has been down so long it will b a different colour now

We are swithering between having the carpet laid, painting the stairs (look on Pinterest) or having the treads stripped and restained (to match parquet in the hall).