How can I recover my stairs? I want to DIY it!

Keep searching online for a better price. It is out there. You can always ask for a carpenter off Craig's List to give you a good price to cut treads to fit.

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A low-cost way to perk up particle board stair treads is with paint. Stairs take a lot of abuse, so interior-grade latex paint isn’t the best choice. For results that will last, prime the treads with porch and floor paint primer, garage floor paint primer, or epoxy primer, which is a bit more difficult to use, but hard-wearing. Choose paint that works with the primer. If you opt for porch and floor primer, paint the treads with porch and floor paint. Painting a staircase is tricky, so prime and paint either the left or right half of the staircase, wait for that to dry, then prime and paint the opposite side. A topcoat of paint blends any demarcation lines down the center. ***** Laminate flooring can transform an particle board staircase. Although laminate usually is installed as a floating system -- which means it’s neither nailed nor glued down -- installation on stair treads requires a different approach. The movement of a floating system on a staircase would be unsafe. Instead, the strips of laminate are bonded to the particle board with a constuction adhesive for laminate flooring. The first strip of laminate butts against the riser. If that strip is not wide enough to cover the whole tread, another strip is locked into the front edge of the first. and it is glued down. If you also wish to cover the stair risers with laminate, glue it in place after the tread laminate is installed. ***** I used laminate flooring on my basement stairs. There was glued pebble linoleum and metal nosing on them. I removed the metal nosing and glued down laminate flooring over the linoleum with construction adhesive. I used 1 x2 boards for the nosing. Cut the boards to length, rounded two outside sharp edges with a hand plane (you can use a file or sand paper), a bead of glue and a few finish nails. Painted the risers. That was several years ago. They look great and are holding up to this day.

Absolutely visit your local Resale Store for donated wood flooring. Measure twice, cut once. You can use finish nails or liquid nails if you choose. OR, just sand, prime and paint. Get creative! (Painted runner, numbers, home town street names, special vacation spots, zodiac signs, favorite movie titles, etc.) Make each stair a focal point for future family & friend's dinner conversations.

Best of luck.

I would just paint the stairs as adding designs will make them look to obvious. Take a look here for inspiration. https://www.pinterest.com/explore/painting-pressed-wood/

We will be facing the same situation later this year when we remove all carpet from our downstairs (only three rooms carpeted still) -and the stairs! I am reading with interest, the comments and suggestions on your inquiry. Thanks to all who have given suggestion!

This is what I did to spice up my boring stairs. I painted the back of each step and stained each top. I used fabric dipped in liquid starch on every other back. This way I can easily remove and wash if dirty. I applied stickers of sayings from the Dollar store to the painted backs. Total cost under $30. I sealed everything in polyurethane except the fabric.