My old Federalist style house (b 1824) has crazy mismatched hardwood floors. The living room is a light colored oak that was installed in the 90's, but the hallway is lovely old cherry colored and the upstairs is just damaged looking. The stairs are covered in decades of lead paint and so I would like to redo them. There is a mahogany railing that the stair guys say they can strip and restore, so I will probably stain that a dark color even though it won't match any other wood in the house. I plan to have a grey sisal runner. So, the question I have is: Should I paint the stairs white? Or have white risers and wood stained treads, even though the treads won't match my floors? Is there any advantage to having wood treads? How do you repaint the treads once a runner is installed? Or will the runner have to be replaced in a couple of years (I have two small children at home.)