The Staircase: Dread for Treads

We're getting close with the floors. We were all a little sore and tired, so we took a little break and focused on the fireplace this week, but I think this weekend we're going to start laying the chevron in the library (yay!). So, since our floors are just about done, my eyes keep floating over to the staircase, which hasn't been touched yet.

The plan was just going to do paint-grade wood in white on the risers and matching white oak planks on the treads. We will have to order oversized custom treads for the bottom three steps. They're extra deep on the right side because of the curve of the staircase.

The lead time was a little longer on these and they were much more expensive that I was hoping, so I haven't made any progress here. I feel sort of stumped and sick of spending money. And when I've felt like that in the past, I usually just end up painting the whole dang thing and calling it good. And truthfully, it might be a good interim option for us.

I could paint the whole shebang from rail to tread white or black or a combo of the two and then add a thick runner to the stairs to hide the planks on the treads, which bother me (I wish they were solid planks).

Or I could take apart the railing and replace just the baluster spindles with something a little cleaner-lined? It looks like all I'd have to do is pop off the little covers to access the screws. Seems like an easy enough job.

The curved rail is pretty simple and would be hard to replace, so I would plan to reuse it for sure.

And I'm thinking it would be way easier to paint the whole thing disassembled, so that's another bonus. The prep would be a pain and all those curves and angles on the balusters are terrifying to think about covering at every angle.

It's a hard choice, since these stairs are like the first thing you see when you walk in. It would be fun to have something special here. Then the other (lazy) part of me thinks, you know, whatever. Those balusters aren't so bad. A little paint would go far there. And maybe black would be really cool (although dusty looking? Hopefully my house will never be this dusty again. blerg.)

Well, now I think I've officially talked myself into painting everything first before looking into anything else. Why not? It could look cool and worst case scenario is I'm out a little paint and some time, and then I can just move forward with ordering the expensive treads and replacing the balusters.

What would you do?