Renovating an old house by a musical couple who want to live there the rest of their lives.
Attic Steps Project
The steps to the Cottage attic are difficult to maneuver.
The ladder/stairs to the attic in the Cottage.
They’re perfectly stable when down but they’re a bear to pull down.
This permanent ladder leads to the cottage attic and tucks up near the ceiling.
And even more difficult to put back up again.
Our pull-down steps may have to be custom made to maintain a maximum opening in the ceiling.
So in addition to the Cottage improvements I mentioned yesterday, we’re having a standard set of pull-down attic steps installed into the hole in the ceiling.
The attic is a great place to keep all sorts of great stuff.
This should make it easier to use the attic for storage and might allow us to hang a divider in front of the bed to block it off from the front door.
Do you have a practical improvement you’d like to make in your house which would be impossible for you to DIY?
Welcome to The Glade, where the second generation of renovations has just begun and the mania about our home, music and other passions fill our days and nights.
We’re Charlie and Jo in the music world; Mary Jo and Charles to family; and JoJo and Charlie to each other. We are renovating a midcentury house in a Victorian historic district where we want to live there the rest of our lives. It's a 1946 house located in Maryland. We were married in this house.
Thus far (pre-blog) we refinished cabinets, added a window seat (still working on the cushion), rearranged a wall in the guest house due to sink/vanity replacement, planted a vegetable garden, and other quick and not-so-quick fixes. So this latest zeal for construction is the result of my having lived here since 1997 and feeling a need to ready the house for the next chapter and beyond.
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6 thoughts on “Attic Steps Project”
That will be a great improvement for your tenant is you can put up a divider. Do you use the attic storage or does she? Improved steps will help a lot.
Functional stairs will be good! Tomorrow when we go to the Home Show, we’ll be looking for a wood-burning fireplace insert–although it seems unlikely any would fit–and if not, new fireplace doors. A job for the pros.
Let's Face the Music 
That will be a great improvement for your tenant is you can put up a divider. Do you use the attic storage or does she? Improved steps will help a lot.
We both use the attic. We’ve been considering styles of dividers for awhile. We think we have stumbled upon the answer. Jo
Functional stairs will be good! Tomorrow when we go to the Home Show, we’ll be looking for a wood-burning fireplace insert–although it seems unlikely any would fit–and if not, new fireplace doors. A job for the pros.
Hope you find exactly what you’re imagining. Some things just aren’t worth the bother and learning curves to do them oneself. Jo
Having that storage is convenient but not if you can’t access it easily. This is a smart use of money and a professional.
When no one was living in the Cottage I always left the steps down but they do take up floor space. Jo