33 Stair Riser Ideas to Elevate Your Space

Fade In or Fade Out

Subtly or dramatically gradient a single color on the risers with paint, laminate, or peel-and-stick wallpaper. Depending on the effect, you can darken or lighten the hue as the stairs ascend. But tones getting lighter with each step up can be a whimsical and symbolic play on a stairway to the sky or heaven.

Play With Geometry

Geometric patterns on ceramic tile, such as a Moroccan-inspired eight-fold rosette or mod semicircle pattern, are still hugely popular in residential design. Find one that catches your eye and use it to clad just the risers.

Try to line up the pattern from riser to riser to create continuity as only the risers will be visible from a distance. If the pattern is too busy, use it on every other riser.

Mix and Match

Instead of a single geometric pattern, you can mix and match designs of complementing color palettes into a patchwork composition for the risers or use a different pattern for each step. This is especially ideal for when you can’t narrow down the pattern you wish to use or you’re going after a Portuguese tile-work look.

Be Shifty

Torn between two colors? Consider an ombre palette: Like a gradient, an ombre scheme transitions between two or more colors as opposed to the same tint darkened or lightened.

Try Animal Patterns

If birds don’t appeal, but other wildlife does, think about animal prints you love. They come in runners, wallpapers, carpet tiles, or decals. Picture giraffe patches, leopard rosettes, cow spots, tiger stripes, and more.

Get Some Fiber

As everyone knows, natural jute or sisal fiber makes a great rug or carpet, and you can easily find stair runners constructed with it. Stair runners are typically laid over both the treads and risers and usually centered so that there are thin lines of exposed steps on either side of it.

What’s particularly great about a jute or sisal runner is that they have excellent grip, which can help deter falls. The bad news is that both fibers can break down easily from wear and tear if the home occupants frequently use the staircase with shoes on.

Run With Runners

Buy a simple readymade runner or create one with carpet tiles. On the one hand, carpet tiles are precut to a manageable size that’s easier to measure out and trim than carpet rolls.

You might find a bigger selection of patterns and colors in carpet tiles compared to readymade runners, though some makers offer design customization at reasonable prices. Either will provide traction for safety on the stairs.

Don’t Change, Cover Up

If you feel the wood of your staircase looks dated—or your taste has simply shifted —you can change the tone or species by using several types of products: self-adhesive wood veneer, wood-mimicking luxury vinyl or porcelain tile, and stair cover kits. The latter, once installed, looks just like the real thing.

Hit the Books

Incorporate your favorite inspirational quotes, buzzwords, holiday greetings, or song lyrics (or pen your own) across the risers using die-cut self-adhesive vinyl letters or home-printed decals.

If you want to flex your creative muscle and work with more unique fonts, bypass the decal route and try stencil-painting the letters by hand.

Reveal Your Type

Consider numbering the risers in regular or Roman numerals in your favorite font and justified to one side as opposed to the center.

You can find readymade decals, print your own, or stencil them in yourself. But be sure to paint or apply a covering to the risers in a contrasting color to make the typography pop.

And, you don’t have to be married to the design or palette. Just peel off, paint over, cover, or revamp the stair decor when you tire of it.

Make It Shimmer

Add a luxe touch to the staircase by applying metallic wallpaper, paint, decal, or laminate on the risers. It can be a solid tone covering the entire riser, a metallic pattern drawn with marker, or even a minute metallic detail used sparingly. But avoid overdoing it and leave the treads in the simplest complementary finish.

Open a Portal

Truly artistic—or just art-loving—people should think about building a mosaic mural on the risers that assembles itself when you stand at a certain point in front of the stairs. It’ll create a trippy optical illusion of an entrance into another world or dimension.

Fake It to Make It

A fun DIY project for some, painting a faux runner can have stunning results, whether it’s due to added intricacy to the design or the hue you decide on. As it’s meant to mimic a runner, the color should cover both risers and treads and should have a definitive border revealing some of the base stair colors.

Take a Garden Stroll

Create a serene botanical view with a painterly mural divided into sections on the risers. There are different styles of floral illustrations you can go with, but blending it in with the stairs by choosing a design with a solid color ground and applying the same color to the stair treads is particularly smart. Find such visuals in peel-and-stick vinyl, wallpaper, and tiles.

Add Figurative Flora

An abstract floral graphic—think Henri Matisse’s cutouts—can bring nature indoors while keeping the aesthetic modern. There’s a great variety of these in peel-and-stick stair riser, wallpaper, and decal form.

Look to Fashion

Channel a classic look by recreating a muted fabric pattern found in jackets and suits such as a houndstooth, gingham, plaid, or pinstripe. You can find these motifs in stair runners but also carpet tile, ceramic tile, wallpaper, vinyl tile, and laminate forms.

Bring on the Candy Stripe

Go a step further in referencing fashion fabrics with stripes of a vibrant hue (or multiple hues a-la-Paul Smith). You can readily find stair runners or laminate or wallpaper if only covering the risers.

Create Chevron

The chevron pattern isn’t new, but putting your spin on it can give it new life: try deconstructing it by using a super large-scale pattern and rotating the v’s from riser to riser so that it’s not immediately recognizable.

Choose your medium and color pairings based on how bold or subtle you want the pattern to be, from a vibrant Missoni-style zigzag to minimal marquetry and shiplap looks.

Place Plants

If you’re not looking for a permanent look but something you can easily switch out seasonally, try placing some plants on the sides to bring in greenery. For the holidays, you can try red poinsettias or pink flowers for spring.

Run the Gamut

Recreate a Pantone color fan deck, whether in a single- or multicolor family. You can try to source accurate paint colors to DIY the project but there are plenty of readymade decals that include the printed Pantone brand name and code number either against the color or highlighted within a white box label.

Bring Out Your Brush

Several peel-and-stick wallpaper producers offer a wide selection of eye-catching painting-like murals and patterns that are both easy and quick to cut and apply.

Most are also repositionable, making it super easy to adjust if you don’t align things right the first time. Picture a moody rainforest, a playful backdrop of splatter paint, or a specific destination landscape you want to conjure up.

Be Stone Cold

Faux marble is a popular finish for residential backsplashes, walls, and floors, so why not try it on stair risers? You have a choice of realistic-looking porcelain tiles and more obvious 2D imagery in wallpaper and laminate forms. Just be sure that if you wish to clad both risers and treads, you choose a non-glossy finish to improve safety on the steps.

Chip Off the Old Block

Terrazzo may be all the rage in kitchen and bath design, but it could also enhance the look of a staircase if used either on the risers alone or both the treads and risers.

You can use real terrazzo tiles, but the cheaper and easier option is ceramic tile. These tile manufacturers have perfected faux terrazzo, giving it realistic visual depth and complexity. When walking on such a staircase, your house guests will feel as if they’ve stepped into an upscale European hotel lobby,

Light It Up

Possibly one of the most overlooked staircase ideas is step lighting. Yet it gives a unique feel to stairways while also improving safety by supplementing natural or overhead illumination.

There’s a multitude of options here such as wall-mounted or wall-recessed lights beside every or every other step, LED light strips underneath the handrail, or strip lighting mounted onto or embedded into the underside of each tread (if the tread design includes a lip, that is).

Paint It Black

White tends to be the hue of choice for stairs or just the risers, but black can be an excellent alternative—one that transforms an ordinary staircase into a sleek modern architectural element that creates drama and a moody look.

Work Less

Sometimes all a staircase needs is any amount of contrast between the treads and risers. Consider painting the risers white (or, per the previous suggestion, black) if the treads are a wood tone, tiled, or carpeted. It’s minimal work that can make such a huge difference.

Channel Delftware

If you’ve ever seen pottery or dishware donning pastoral or woodland motifs in a simple blue tone, you know what Delftware is. Originally, this tin-glazed earthenware—which attains its blue from added cobalt oxide—was introduced in the Netherlands in the 1500s.

If you prefer a traditional, rural, or farmhouse aesthetic, Delftware ceramic tile on the risers will probably work for you. For more of a transitional look, consider a slew of modernized patterns that mimic old-world Delftware in color and finish.

Use Shades of Gray

One of the most neutral hues that can match any aesthetic is gray. Fortunately, there’s a ton of tile with monochromatic gray patterns and graphics, as well as solid gray in varying shades. These look best on the risers, but you can also consider stair runners with the same aesthetic monochromatic attributes.

Let It Be Luxe

If your stairs are already fitted with a runner, or you’re set on adding a runner, consider stair rods. These are the bars you might have spotted elsewhere holding the runner in place against the risers.

Think of it as adding jewelry to the stairs, giving it a touch of luxe. And they’re offered with different finial designs and finishes from brass to steel to gunmetal.

Opt for Black and White

A stark black-and-white contrast can work great, whether you’re using patterns or solids (the latter of which can evoke whimsical piano keys). You can find laminates and porcelain tile that fit the bill and a wide range of runners and carpet tile but also consider good old-fashioned paint.

Consider using a matte-or satin–or finished material or coat on the stair treads

Think Pink

The name says it all: try using pink on the stair risers or both risers and treads to add a burst of bold but pastel accent to an otherwise neutral setting.

Paint a faux runner (as seen here) or clad the stairs with tile, a real stair runner, carpet tile, or laminate.

Try Tin Tiles

If you’re enthused with old-fashioned charm, consider cladding the risers with faux pressed-tin ceiling tiles. This ornamentation features delicately embossed patterns that recall American homes in the late Victorian era.

You can also choose between full metallic, weathered or patinated metallic, or painted finish (the latter of which is typically white to mimic decorative plasterwork) to suit your particular style. A great alternative to the tin tiles is a texture-pattern wallpaper that’s been painted over and distressed.

Visualize Velvet

If you’re looking to make a subtle statement, try bringing in some velvet in your favorite color or in a style that fits the rest of your home’s aesthetic. It”ll also help add some additional padding when you’re walking up and down the stairs.