ᐅ Access to the attic – space-saving staircase centrally located in the gallery

Hello everyone,

I have finished some renovations in the attic for the children and now face the challenge of providing a safe way for them to go up and down without crowding the entire hallway. I hope some of you might have experience on the best way to achieve this.

The attic is converted to a height of 2m (6 ft 7 in), but this height is only available in a width of 45cm (18 inches). After that, the roof slopes symmetrically at a 45° angle. The access to the attic is located in the center and is currently reached by a folding ladder. The ladder measures 60 x 114cm (24 x 45 inches), and I assume the opening is the same size. Ideally, I would prefer not to change the size of the opening since there is already rather limited space inside the attic to pass by the hatch.

One option would be to install a space-saving staircase or possibly a spiral staircase. For the space-saving staircase, the steps would be taken lengthwise, while for the spiral staircase they would be oriented toward the roof slope. I am unsure if this is really feasible due to the ceiling height.

I have attached two photos and a drawing so you can better understand the situation on site.

In general, the solution should be relatively cost-effective and involve as little effort as possible. Thank you for your ideas.

I would choose a center stringer space-saving staircase with a spiral turn. This provides a steep staircase with a bit more safety.

Why do you want to change anything about it in the first place? The staircase meets standard safety requirements, and for children, it’s quite easy to go up.

We had the same setup, and the kids were often upstairs because of the toy highway they set up; sometimes we even closed the hatch when they wanted some quiet.

Unless it’s a room that will be used more or less continuously or is going to be part of the living area, I would leave it as it is for occasional play afternoons. Also, most of the time the staircase downstairs would be right in the way, and the kids probably won’t be playing up there much longer anyway.

Arauki11 schrieb:

Why do you want to change anything about it at all? The staircase meets standard safety requirements, and for children it’s quite easy to climb up.
We had the same setup, and the kids were often up there because of the toy highway they built; sometimes we even closed the hatch when they wanted some quiet time.
Unless it’s a room that will be used more or less continuously or is meant to be part of the living area, I’d leave it as it is for occasional play afternoons, especially since most of the time the staircase would be right in the middle of the hallway below, and the kids might soon stop playing up there anyway.

Thank you for your feedback. The issue is that the children can’t open the staircase by themselves. The lock is rather hard to reach and then the length isn’t enough to fully unfold the stairs. I also checked out scissor staircases with a motor drive just for fun, but those are really expensive... But I do agree with you that no matter which staircase you choose, if it’s fixed in place, it will be right in the middle of the hallway. The hatch was originally planned in a different location, but the problem was that it would open directly in front of a beam, so it had to be repositioned...

Ok, in our case, someone was always around when the children were upstairs. So, we pulled the staircase down ourselves and then pushed it back up later. As they got older, they didn’t want to go upstairs anymore.

I would really consider whether the upper room is used for more than just occasional children’s playtime. If so, I would maybe open up the attic a bit more and make the whole space upstairs more comfortable and livable. Otherwise, the high costs and, in particular, having a rather basic-looking staircase standing in the middle of the living area wouldn’t appeal to me.

We had a somewhat different “staircase issue” here with access to a semi-open storage area in the gallery from the living room. Either it looked cheap, took up too much space, or was as expensive as a proper staircase usually is—and all that just to get a suitcase or something from up there about four times a year.

In the end, we chose a simple but a bit nicer oak wooden ladder from a supplier in the Netherlands. It works for us and almost looks as if it was intentional.

I’ve probably seen every staircase in the world online, so I know it feels like going in circles. Therefore, I’d go back to the beginning with the strict rule: what happens often, happens often; and what happens rarely (playing in the attic) is rare.

Keep us posted, it’s always interesting to hear how and why people ultimately decide for or against something.

I also had someone here who would have extended the stairwell and built a staircase along the right wall. The opening would then be at least 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) long and 1.4 meters (4.5 feet) wide. But with only 1.4 meters (4.5 feet) in width, there would still be just 1.5 meters (5 feet) of remaining headroom next to the passage in the attic. Who is supposed to use that, please? And for a price of around 10,000 euros, at least it would have been adjusted to the existing staircase. Well, that’s simply too much for me and unfortunately not practical if I can no longer walk properly up there.

Basically, all the children can safely go up and down at the moment. Practice makes perfect. Still, it’s not something you want to look at.