Bringing My Stairs From Drab To Fab

My great room has two sets of stairs leading into it because it is not on the same level with the rest of my house.  The stairs have always been pretty ugly.  They were stained when the rest of the floors were put in, but they only stained the tops, not the sides.  They also have these really ugly granny rails that are kind of a dirty white color.  Sounds fabulous, right?
Well I decided to do something about them (after two years of ignoring them), but I need my DIYer card taken away because I forgot to take before pictures!!  What was I thinking?  Sometimes I just start something on a whim and get caught up in the moment :)
I did, however, find this picture of the stairs.  Ok, so really it's my cat being really cute but it also captured part of the stairs so you can see how they looked. Please ignore the in-progress chairs in the background. Oh, and the lazy cat.

Yes, this is how he sleeps...and if he is in your way, just step over...he won't move. 

Here is a pic I snapped after I attacked them with some paint.

I used left over trim paint to take care of the fronts, and black paint for the granny rail, which was left over from painting my back door black (which I haven't showed you yet).  I was afraid the black might make the rail stand out, but it actually kind of blends and brings a new sophistication to the stairs.

This is the best pic I could find of the other set of stairs...you might remember them from THIS Christmas post. 

Here they are now (from a different angle).  I gave them the same treatment, and they look SO MUCH BETTER.  Why didn't I do this sooner?? I also finally painted the door, which was just the off-white stock color before.
Ok, I know stairs aren't the most exciting thing in the world, but I wanted to show you how such a small change can really help out a space.  And the best part about the whole project: it was FREE!  Everything I used I had already.  I love it when that happens!!

Here is one last pic of my happy stairs.  Aaaand, I just realized there's a load of laundry on the couch. Sorry about that. Keepin' it real with this post.
Anyway, like I said, if you walked in the house, you would probably just assume they had always been that way, which is the point!  Everyone have a happy Friday!