Best Paint for Stairs in a Basement

What is the best paint for stairs and floors?

There are many floor paints on the market there but the best paint for stairs I can speak to is the Rust-Oleum Interior Floor Coating kit. This is a two-step process consisting of a tinted base coat and a top coat.

Why did we decide on painted stairs for the basement?

You can cover the treads with LVP planks and add a bullnose trim piece but that creates a lot of seams and is not an elegant solution.

What I decided to do instead is to paint the basement stairs black. Rather than trying to match the floor stain and failing, painting them also provides a transition between the upstairs hardwood floors and the basement LVP floors.

Our basement had those typical unfinished stairs – low-quality wood that is not meant for staining. Fortunately, the treads had a bullnose edge which lead me to the decision to paint them.

A full replacement would have been way more expensive. I found the best paint for stairs and other flooring surfaces to withstand foot traffic.

Stairway Terminology

Treads – the horizontal surface that you step on Risers – the vertical surface between each riser