Any suggestions on what to do with these stairs? Stairs come from a room with hardwood floors and lead to a hallway with harwoods. Not sure what is underneath the nasty carpet.

1st things 1st, pull up that carpet & see what you'll be dealing with.

Like Kelly said, pull carpet out first - time for it to go.  But my gut feeling is, given the age of the carpet, stairs would be just bare 2x.  I would refinish floor in room & hallway, then install same flooring for stairs as well.

Is it a rental or flip?

Look me almost exactly like stairs that I had to deal with.

I’d tear up the carpet and then have your contractor sand it down and then finish with a nice stain.

@Nhi Nguyen this will be a rental. I am planning to redo all the hardwoods throughout.  I just want to see if anyone had any ideas as to what they do with stairs like this.  Have you had any experience just pulling carpet and painting stairs? 

@Jordan B. , If underneath are some nice solid sub treads (good condition 2x or plywood), you can use anti-slip paint designed for steps & flooring (an example would be https://www.homedepot.com/p/Sure-Step-1-Gal-Anti-S... ) for the treads, white for risers to give them a high end look.  Check these for inspirations: https://www.pinterest.com/explore/painted-stairs/

Or you can use some rubber treads to cover old/ugly sub treads, and still paint risers white.  These sold for $15/tread for example:

http://www.kofflersales.com/p/stair-treads-safety-...

We dont paint because no painted friction surfaces are allowed herevby the lead compliance people so those rubber treads would be needed too. Frankly they are a good idea to decrease slipperiness too. If it isnt suitable for stain you could inexpensively recarpet.

Oh yeah, when you said floors will be redone, are you planning to refinish them?  

It's probably just plywood underneath.  For rentals, use "liquid carpet" .  Paint them brown or gray with floor paint.  If it's a nice area, paint the risers white.  No sense putting new carpet down that will get trashed, and replacing with new hardwood treads is very expensive (worth it for a flip, not a rental).

Originally posted by @Jordan B. :

@Nhi Nguyen this will be a rental. I am planning to redo all the hardwoods throughout.  I just want to see if anyone had any ideas as to what they do with stairs like this.  Have you had any experience just pulling carpet and painting stairs? 

 I do. We just finished one similar. Painted treads and risers a semi gloss brown, rolled runner from Lowe's down the center. Looked great and cost less than $100 in materials for the entire staircase. If I can find a picture l will post.

The runner is not only for looks. It prevents wear in the heavy use part of the stairs and provides sure footing than uncovered stairs, which can be slick and dangerous.

@Jordan B. you are going to want either carpet or a runner on the steps to prevent people from slipping. Tearing out carpet from steps isn't that enjoyable. I would pay a carpet place to tear out and put down commercial carpet. It should last 15-20 years and won't cost that much. If you rip it out yourself and paint, install a runner or non slip treads. Using only paint may seem like the cheap solution, but the slip hazard isn't worth saving a few bucks.

Thank you everyone for all the great ideas.

@Nhi Nguyen I am going to have flooring experts come in to refinish the hardwood floors in the house. I was thinking to to the stairs myself to save some extra money. Do you think it is worth it to just pay the flooring guys to pull the carpet on the stairs, sand, paint, and install a runner? This would be my first time doing this and it might save me some headache if it is not too expensive.

@Jordan B. , I would, if pricing is reasonable. 

Good luck. 

If you're going to have nice hardwood floors up and down, I might do more than paint. I've done vinyl plank on stairs and they've come out pretty good. You can probably find some at home depot that will match whatever stain options you're going with on your hardwood. Then paint the risers white.

Vinyl plank is extremely durable. Seems pretty good in terms of safety. And is something you can do yourself maybe.

Thanks @Mike H. ill look into that.

Paint makes sense to me if you also have painted floors upstairs.  If they're hardwood top and bottom, then I would be more inclined to do what @Mike H. said and try the vinyl matching it to existing wood as much as possible.

If anyone is interested, this is what I ended up doing. Had floor guy redo treads and I painted thee rest white. Came out great!

Kudos for posting the After picture! I wish everyone did followup posts to close the loop on thier posts. looks good.

I agree with @Colleen F. , a lot of post and run happens. Glad to see the finished product. Much better than what you had before!