After living in several homes with less-than-friendly attic storage stairways, I decided to make access easier by enlarging opening to accomodate full-sized door and wide enough stairway with a safe inclination. Poplar for stringers and treads. Steel rod and strapping for hinge mechanism and electric winch for raising and lowering. Now, even my tiny wife can use this easily and thus, we are now more encouraged to use the space. Will gladly provide more detail for those interested. This is something that should be considered for new house or retro-fit like ours. Could be interior and flush with ceiling with proper design. Pictures were taken with “stuff” in place to show actual space used.
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Stairway in raised position leaves plenty of head room
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A safe inclination, still leaving room for full size SUV and cabinetry in front.
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Electric winch
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Full-size counter-weighted door and safety railing.
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Steel support hinge mechanism.
View Comments
Lawrence,
A unique solution to a common problem... nicely done! I'll have to keep your ouside-the-box idea in mind for future projects. I turned down a project last year because a conventional attic stair wouldn't work in a particular application but your idea would have been perfect. Maybe I'll just give those folks a call back...
Have you considered posting your photo on Pinterest? My guess it would get a lot of buzz there.
It's certianly a very good idea for attic storage access and I’m quite surprised that more people haven't thought about improving the general build of upper-level access. Of course it also depends on how your house is built and exactly where your storage space is located in your home, but truly kudos to actually getting something done about it!
It looks rather surreal at the beginning - a door that appears out of nowhere in the ceiling… My kids would have a ball of a time running up and down the storage attic with their imaginative games. Nicely done.