We're out!

We did it! We moved out before the first of March.  It was quite a feat getting everything packed up and out with the two littles running about.  We had lots of help from Peter's parents, who came up and helped us move larger pieces of furniture. 
I'll be resuming the 'house tour, in a few days, but for now I come to you in need.  In need of your help.  They'll be scraping and then priming our stairwell between first and second floors, which means I need to think about colors for that. 
Why has that never crossed my mind? I've considered colors for the entry way, and the hall at the top of the stairs, but not the actual stairs.  At the moment, there is a door at the top of the stairs, but not one at the bottom.  It looks like there could have been one at some point, and there may be one again in the future. 
Currently the walls are painted a shade of brown and have imitation grain lines painted on.   It also looks like there may be a layer of green under the brown.  There is also 'trim' along the very bottom of the walls that is painted a darker brown.  So...what would you do?  Keep in mind our first floor is going to be very historically inspired so it needs to mesh with that, if in fact we don't put a door at the bottom.