It depends on how important it is to you. Your inspiration is beautiful, but it is in the basement. Maybe just covering them with some nice carpet would work better?

Stair carpeting has come a long way, and if you fall on the stairs it is a little more forgiving. The good stuff isn't cheap either. Bottom line depends on what the rest of your house dictates for a basement reno.

The wood stairs are beautiful, but I personally wouldn’t expect them leading to a basement. I would put a nice upgraded carpet on them and spend the money on something else instead.

Basement stairs are in the basement. Spending a bunch of money to make them beautiful is wasteful. Have the one (or more) cracked/broken/damaged steps properly repaired and put in carpeting for the whole flight of steps. The underneath part of the stairs is not attractive, but it may not be seen. You can spend that money much better by putting some nice storage cabinetry below the stairs.

I think it depends on your goals and vision for the basement. Is it just a place to do laundry and watch a movie or will you be entertaining family and friends? If entertaining, I say do the upgrade. We are working on a basement plan for a home purchase and the walkout basement is crucial to our living space (while technically not being livable sq footage) as we are in the nyc area and ever sq ft is gold. But we will use it like living space so we want it to feel cohesive with the rest of the house. I told the stair guy i want it to look like the stairs in the rest of the house, bottom line.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I think we’re going to explore some classy carpeting like the above comment linked to and see if we can do some nice chunky trim around the closed stair stringers. Maybe we just saved $4K

Garth, why not do something w/the risers? tile them, redo the wood, paint,,etc.

have you ever seen RISERart? (Etsy)

I’m most interested in your dogs, because I think that we have the same breeds! But my vote is that splurging on the stairs would be worth it, especially opening it up.

Spend the $4000 on a vacation, not on stairs to the basement. Experiences, not things.

I would just paint the risers white and treads black- not far from your desired picture. But if you are definitely doing a carpet runner, I think the stairs would look better in all black...also easier to clean (toe scuffs on white risers are annoying). Then go on vacation.

tatts..worry about your own money and go where you like. let other people spend their money how they want to. not everyone can travel (think young children, pets, sick parents, disabilities, or no desire, etc)

You continually post this stuff about not buying "things". to each their own. why do you care?

Tatts, maybe a forum about home design isn’t the place for you. Yes, everyone here making improvements on their homes COULD spend it on something else. Or maybe like me they choose to spend it to increase the comfort of their havens. This forum isn’t about vacations, it’s about home improvement.

RISERart>>> Beth love this idea... I would be looking into this, if it was for me...