Basement stairs

We're finishing our basement ourselves and I'm thinking that we need to fix up the basement stairs as well...we are putting vinyl plank flooring down, but our stairs are seriously hurting...they are the standard old-school open stairs...I am thinking of closing them in by installing a riser and possibly painting the treads and risers and getting a stair runner installed...I wanted to replace the tread with wood and finish them, but my husband talked me out of it due to the price. Any other unique ideas?

Basement stairs

we just put a railing in and carpeted them. We were going to paint them or stain them, but it was just too much work! dh did the whole basement himself, and when we got towards the end we just decided to carpet them lol. We have vinyl flooring too