Hello,
This is my first post as I've been lurking learning a few things on this site. I have ripped out the carpet on our stairs to replace with hardwood treads and painted risers. Underneath is generic plywood with tread flush with riser. These stairs are boxed in on both sides. I am trying to put some hardwood in under an extreme budget. What I have is time and labor and some moderate carpentry skills and tools. I can find solid treads ready to go with nosing for about $50/step and up. I have 13 steps that are 44" wide and a landing mid-way that is 44" square. The question is, can I design something cheaper than $50/step if my time is free?

I have attached an image to the end of this post which will explain the idea better.

It is an idea a friend gave me who recently did some stairs with solid 5/4 Maple treads and had this idea for an even cheaper stairs version. It would consist of getting 3/4" Maple Plywood and ripping it into planks that would serve as the treads. 1/4" plywood of anything (Maple, MDF) would be painted white and serve as the riser. A 1" Maple half round will serve as the nosing and hide the riser/tread junction. The half round could be attached to the tread before installation with some tooling. The 44"x44" landing would be one solid piece from 3/4" Maple plywood. I costed this out for about $200 which works out to $15/step.

So the question is, how stupid is this idea? Please note that we had hideous carpet in these stairs and anything is an improvement at this point. Some $200 stairs with a lot of my time is better than $700 stairs with very little of my time.

Thanks for you consideration.

Sounds like a plan to me. I've heard of ppl ripping down hardwood plywood and making floors outa that.

You can do the stairs outa strips of the maple flooring but treads look better.

Excellent idea. Looks good on paper
I would sure take pains with the nose, blending it into the tred. Could look hot !

Thanks for the replies, that gives me hope this is do-able.

I also am concerned that the nose won't look good on that tread. It will take some good joinery and good clamping to make it look good.

Another concern I have after doing more research is the nosing should stick out 3/4" or more from the riser. With this design, it only sticks out 1/2". I could probably stick it out further if my half round is 3/4", and I route a groove in the bottom of the plywood for the riser to stick into.

Another change I've thought of is to use Birch instead of Maple. It cheaper and seems to look the same.

As I progress with this idea I'll be sure to update this thread.

Thanks.

A look that's really seemed to grab hold out here is painted risers.
Ofcoarse I still install clean paint grade riser material. I recently installed some pretty wild laminate faced material on risers , with Cherry treds. Gotta get some pictures

Only thing I can add here, is to be sure to maintain the finish on these treads, since the veneer is very thin, you wouldn't be able to re-finish them more than about once, I would think. So as the finish wears, you may want to buff and coat to prevent the need to refinish.
I have made these treads in the past, and they do look fine, even with the reduced overhang.
I not so sure about the landing. It will look exactly like what it is, a big sheet of plywood. It may be a better idea to get some unfinished flooring for that, but still use your nosing solution for consistancy.

Well, do not expect these plywood stairs to wear like true solid wood ones. The plywood veneer used today is paper thin. You can not even sand it except with a very fine abrasive. The core material is mostly softwoods, so again, you not not the the dent resistance of hardwood, but whatever the softwood core material is. IMO, you are using the wrong material. Plywood was not made for this purpose.

Instead, considering finding a local source for 5/4" hardwood planks. Three 4" wide planks will make a 12" wide plank, enough for a tread. I've built my own treads before and it's easy. I use a biscuit joiner and clamps to glue up the strips into treads. Find 5/4 stock SAS 4. Arrange the pieces in the most pleasing grain and color pattern. slot them, add biscuits, glue and clamp em.
After gluing, sand and round over the front edge for the nose. Now your ready to finish them before installation. Much easier to do the finishing now than after they're installed.

Another tip. You can use a wide variety of wood. It doesn't have to be oak or maple ( although those are nice ). If you find a source for another wood that saves you lots of money consider that. Some wood alternatives: Birch, Alder, Beech, Doug Fir, Southern Yellow Pine, Poplar, Mesquite, etc. But please note, many of these are softer than oak and maple and will dent easier. But they are real wood and can be refinished many times.

And actually, around here, oak treads can be had for under $30.00. That's $400.00 in treads and no dicking around with trying to build something that will need to be ripped out later, just to save $200.00?

Gary, thanks for the reply. The method you outline is the method I was going to do before the idea came up to use the Maple plywood. Part of the reason is I don't have a Biscuit Joiner, and I wasn't looking forward to using 3 strips to make one tread. However the positive of that method is I could just route my own bull nose instead of tacking on a half round.

I had thought that the final ply was all solid Maple, so I was thinking there was 3/32 of hardwood to work with. However if you think that the veneer is truly paper thin, then I agree with you that this isn't the best way to go.

I have attached an image below of what I think this would look like. It had been suggested to be if I go down this road to route a slot under the nosing for the riser to slide into, so I could hide the riser/tread junction.

I'll price out some solid 4" long strips at my local lumberyard this afternoon and estimate how much this method would cost. Thanks for the suggestions.

I have one more question concerning wood types, would Douglas Fir really be considered an option? I thought it was too soft? This whole thing started because I had a bunch of extra redwood lying around and wanted to use that, but was told that was too soft.

Well, both redwood and doug fir are coniferous trees, which makes them softwoods. They both have much lower PSI results than most hardwoods. That being said, doug fir has been used for many decades here in Ca. and the northwest as flooring and as stair components. It will dent, but so will oak and maple, and just about any wood. And as far as the thickness of that maple plywood veneer, you're dreaming man. A 4 x 8 sheet at HD will cost at least $50.00 and the veneer is paper thin. I suggest you go look at it. Now it may be possible to order some special plywood with a thicker veneer, but I 'd bet that too will be expensive.

There is no need to have a slot in the bottom of the tread to receive the riser, unless there is no existing rough riser to attach the new riser material to. If there are rough plywood or whatever stairs, I usually just go over them with solid treads and new risers. Riser stock can be whatever you want it to be. If you cannot biscuit join the pieces of hardwood, then a T&G or spline will work, so will dowels. And in fact, 99% of pre-made treads I buy from my distributor are made of 3 or more strips of hardwood glued up with no dowels, splines, biscuits or any other form of joinery. They are simply edge glued with an aliphatic yellow wood glue and clamped overnight. You could use 3/4 stock to save a little money possibly and have a thinner 3/4" nosing roundover. There is nothing wrong with solid 3/4" treads and I see them all the time. Sometimes, to meet the correct run and rise of a staircase, one needs to use 3/4" material instead of 5/4 stock.

Finally, you could use redwood, but it will dent easily. It sure looks pretty though after it's aged for awhile. And I'm just not into plywood for stairs. Solids last, veneers do not.

Thanks for the reply. I did head over to my lumber yard to look more closely at the Plywood veneer and I was dreaming. I had thought it was one whole 1/32" ply on the outside, but it is just some paper thin veneer. I think that idea is out the window.

They do not carry 5/4 Maple, nor any maple in S4S. They had a variety of widths in 3/4" S1S Maple. I could biscuit join two 6" wide pieces together then route the nose. This works out to $23/tread for material. The bummer is with S1S, I'd have a lot more work, and since I don't have a table saw, ripping the other side flat could be trouble.

As for what these treads and risers will go on, it is plywood where for the most part the tread and riser are flush. Only on a few steps is the plywood tread overhanging the riser, and I plan to saw that off. So my plan was to attach the 1/4" painted riser to the plywood riser. I guess you say I can butt up the riser level enough with the tread that it will look good without having to slot the tread to hide the riser end.

A few weeks ago I did make a few redwood treads with some 12" wide I had and really liked the look. However the wearing worried me enough to consider Maple.

Thanks for the help.

You need a table saw dude. How were you going to make your plywood treads and MDF risers without cutting them?

All right already you're driving me nuts.
http://www.stairpartsusa.com/product_p/ ... r%2048.htm

1"X11.5"X48" hard maple treads $49.00

save yourself a lot of time and aggravation, you'll thank me later.