Finally.... stairs

Finally, at long last, I have stairs. It’s been a long and winding road, and in a way it still is.

To start at the beginning, when I purchased my new home last July I noticed this great loft space above the master bedroom. It’s the space immediately above, and the size of, the master bath and small walk-in closet.

The flooring, though not of a great quality, was finished and the phone, television and electrical outlets were already in place.

There was no doubt in my mind that the space would become my office. I moved my computer and desk in and built shelving for my books (detailed in an earlier post).

There’s only one problem; there was no way to get there. For the last 10½ months I’ve had a 10-foot tall stepladder sitting in my bedroom so that I could access the space. Obviously not the most desirable of means.

No longer. As of Monday I now have my own stairway to heaven.

Essentially, I was able to add a room without actually building onto the house. The cost of building the stairs and the railing I still need to add will cost me a little less than $3,000.

If that sounds like a lot of money, take into consideration that the first estimate I received was for well over, and I mean well over, $10,000.

I spent countless hours measuring and dreaming up ideas for where to put this staircase. With some minor changes, the final piece is very much what I had imagined.

The wall along which it runs is actually curved and the stairs follow that curve. The builder made the support beams for the stairs from four pieces of plywood, glued and nailed together and curved with the wall. The support beams for the landing go into the closet and attached to the studs inside the opposite wall.

The contractor originally planned to close in the areas beneath both the landing and the ceiling in the closet but I decided to leave them open. I think it gives it more of an open feeling, especially in the closet where it would have lowered the ceiling considerably.

One challenge in the closet was that the electrical box for the original ceiling light fell right in line with one of the new beams. I solved that one by buying a track light; the railing for which is thin enough to fit just between the support beams and ceiling. The picture here is from below, looking up at the closet ceiling on the left and the underneath side of the landing on the right.

I will probably put a simple hand rail up the wall but I will not put railing on the outside of the stairs. My primary goal with the stairs has been to keep them as open as possible so as not to make the bedroom feel too closed in.

As it is, there is more than enough room for my queen sized bed and there will be enough room for a king size if I choose to go that route when I purchase a new mattress.

As for the railing along the loft, I have an idea that I’m excited about. But, as with many of my ideas, we’ll have to wait to see if it will actually work. My daughter comes home from college this weekend and I’ll be enlisting her help, so stay tuned.