Can see that the original padding was a nice shade of green, and they used it as floor covering when they painted, turning most of it white. The padding is peeled up to show the hardwood beneath on each stair.

While I'll likely refinish the stairs, I'm going to put some kind of texture into it... falling down a flight of old wooden stairs and breaking my tailbone once in a lifetime is once too many times, and I did that when I was a teenager.