Stepping Up

So, I've been waiting to carpet my stairs for a while now. The current beige carpet doesn't really go with the color schemes I have going in my house. After going thru hundreds of carpet samples and pictures, I finally decided what I want to do.

I'm using this for inspiration:

http://www.themarionhousebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/509893.jpg

My rails don't go all the way down to the stairs themselves, so I am "expanding" this look by doing black down the edges and grey in the middle without the wood steps on the side. If I were lucky enough to already have finished out stairs, I would just paint them and use a regular runner. Now all I have to do is settle on a grey!