Before and After: Basement Stairs Project

I have been annoyed with our basement steps since we bought this house 14 years ago. They were covered with blobs of construction adhesive and drywall paste and paint drips. The basement remains unfinished but the kids do have a rec room area and we all traverse the stairs daily. Several years ago, we sealed and painted the basement floor and carried the gray theme up the steps. We glued rubber treads down for traction and they're functional but still ugly. I may have just made them uglier! This stairwell is a work in progress.

Here is the before:

And here is the after:

Well? How did I do? It was free because I used paint from previous projects. I left the treads alone and only painted the risers. The kids all smiled when they discovered it. The husband just thinks it's trippy (no pun intended).

Next up for the stairwell: Paint the walls, hang some pictures (another project), paint the door we installed and finish the drywall around the framing.