I just looked again at the trap door space, and gave it some more thought. Here's my take: Stain treads a dark shade Match floor color to stain Paint risers white Paint trap door AND bottom stair same as floor Beware! You may need a small colorful rug under the last stair/on floor(hard to see stair at night) For the rails,etc. The most common/best,imo, look is white paint on the rails and stain on post and newel. Oh! New thought re. last stair: Stain it in a light honey and stencil a design in floor color.It will stand out( for safety) and neat effect! Hmmm, you could instead, treat that trap door with that special effect. It's going to be charming, whatever you do.

I like that runner. AND I need a cabinet like that for shoes, too! So, to answer your question, yes, I think you are on the right track. A rug with blues, browns, and greens would tie everything together. Keep looking. You will find it-and don't settle for something you don't love. :). Oh, and don't reject out of hand polypropylene rugs there. They are soft, have great colors, and wear like iron. Easy clean, too which is great with boys and dogs (ask me how I know). We had one in our family room which was also our most-used entrance to the house and now our son has it in his home. Also, Rugs USA is having a 65% off sale for Columbus Day. Might be fun to browse.

Certainly the direction you run the stairs will impact where they land upstairs and thus, influence the design of that space as well. For me, while a staircase opening to the foyer is beautiful to look at, as noted above, it isn't very practical as generally only guests are coming in the front door and almost no one (including family) goes in the front door and then straight upstairs. We had two staircases in our old house. one in the foyer and one that landed in the kitchen. The foyer staircase got maybe 1/10 the use. And that might be an overestimate. BIAS ALERT: I'm a function person. I like function first. Which isn't to say the stairs in our new home won't be pretty, but they aren't in the foyer either.

Yeah - those treads aren't even an oak or other hardwood I imagine. So not at all the same as some of the grand designs shown above. Notice the carpet going to the wall. I find it a pretty unusual look. Basically carpeted treads dressed up with a curve. All curved is not the same. I think when most of us think curved staircase, we are seeing some grand design. Because if you aren't going grand, then just stick to straight. And if you are going grand, you aren't balking at $100k. I think you are better off spending the money on other things rather than a slightly curved staircase which will still cost you significant extra coin. But that is my opinion and surely regional and personal.