Rising up

When we first moved in to our house the great room was actually two rooms with a loft. There was one bedroom in the front of the house, or a little hall that lead to a narrow living room with a ladder in the middle of the wall going up to the loft. Tearing that wall down was one of the first tasks. However, the ladder was literally in the middle of the room when this wall came down so it had to go. Through the years we have stored a few items up there like skiis, and suitcases so if we needed them we would have to go get the step ladder and climb up. Because of the pitch of the roof we had no idea how we were going to access this loft long term. The only space with enough headroom is in the middle. My best guess was a librarians ladder that could reside on a side wall and slide to the middle for use. Art thought building a walkway from the Bear room was the way to go, but that would mess with the vaulted ceiling look big time! Then we saw this great little Italian staircase. It can be installed as a spiral staircase or in our case a small straight pattern. Most staircases take around eight to ten feet of floor space to rise up one floor. This one accomplishes that in only four feet! The only trick is that you can only walk one way. You have to start with your left foot going up and right foot coming down. Now we just have to find a use for the space!