I've purchased some hard wood flooring to go throughout my entire house. The pieces for the stairs are extremely expensive and are just too much for my budget. It was suggested to me by the sales guy that I could "just build my own out of hardwood floor pieces". He has "nose" pieces (3" wide by 8' long) that I can attach to 2 or 3 pieces of hardwood floor that I can use to just build my own tread, and then build my own risers out of a few pieces as well. This will be significantly cheaper.
This is a sales guy though, so, I can throw him further than I can trust him. Will it look good (or even work) for me to do this? Should I just forget the stairs and leave the carpet on them? I spent a bit looking online for tutorials/etc on how to build your own treads and risers and I couldn't find anyone really doing (or recommending) that you do this.
Best Answer
Time = Money. And assembling these in a manner that won't cause you headache later is going to take a lot of time.
To make a tread, you'll need to laminate the floorboard together somehow, otherwise they will flex under the weight. Construction adhesive would work, but wood glue might be better. And don't forget to sand or plane off the finish before you glue them together because the glue won't stick as well to the finished face.
Multiply all of this by the number of steps you have.
Another method with slightly less work is to put down regular stair treads, then put your hardwood planks over the top. You need to carefully select the correct thickness of the tread, taking in to account the thickness of your planks and the nose molding. This is similar to what is described in the article you linked to in your comment.