Skeleton Staircase

A thousand years ago, or seven months, or whatever it was, I posted RoofSpace Dilemma in which I briefly touched on the trauma we worked through to make key decisions centering around our use of space to create a Dining Room and Attic. These were hard decisions to make when we had little more than our imaginations to work with. It was difficult to imagine not only the final appearance but the usability, the coherence with the rest of the house and the effect on traffic – and thus use of rooms.

The decision to build a winding staircase that tucked into the end of the dining room had many points against it, at first glance. The biggest perceived problem with the whole idea was the low entry point between attic edge and ceiling. The maximum height there is about 3’ 8” (1 metre or so). But it was argued that as the attic wasn’t exactly generous in height at in any area, and would thus be most likely used for a storage area or – better – a kid’s room, a small entry point could almost be counted more an attraction than detraction. The idea of developing the room for kids actually turned that issue into a positive point.

Then we began calculating, and we realised we had to address another potential problem: the height we had to span versus the length of space we had available, versus the local council regs regarding staircase grades. These were crowding each other so much that at first they seemed the write the staircase off. But once we added winder steps in, top and bottom, instead of calculating in terms of one straight flight, it began to appear possible again. There were protests about how steep the stairs would be, but these were overruled with the reminder that we were developing this with kids in mind and that a balustrade down the side and a bar across the window at the bottom would make it quite safe. The narrow dimensions were also predicted to make things manageable.

And then the question of access into the room behind arose. A door under the top of the staircase was immediately suggested by one of the more romantically minded, but it took some very practical fast talking to persuade the builder of this idea’s sense and potential.

As no other staircase option beat this one, the Winding Staircase was begun.

At the end of November, 2007, Slick began framing up.

The above photo was taken from within the existing kitchen, facing out into the dining room. (This is a good example of the few pics I have of the tile floor while it was still new.) The location of the future top winders, or corner stairs, is made visible by the diagonal timber, while the bottom winders can just be glimpsed to the left hand of the photo. (Winders are those triangular stairs that step up as they wind around a central point, such as on a spiral staircase.) The new doorway comes through the left hand wall, under the highest part of the stairs. (The pale corner of the threshold can be seen contrasting with the pine floorboards.)

Then a month passed. I believe we were very busy as a family (being the big Aussie end of school year / Christmas lead up) and that Dad had a lot of work on. For whatever reasons, the next photos in the record that relate to stairs don’t appear for another month. At this point the pressure was beginning to be felt. Not only were we expecting a friend to be staying overnight on Christmas Eve, we were also looking forward to Dad’s parents arriving from Canada soon after Christmas to stay for a month or so. You remember our house plan and the size of our family? Nine people in a little two bedroom house in the midst of a full-blown renovation doesn’t leave much space or sanity. The prospect of two more was a spicy challenge.

But, with just that little extra space that an attic offered, possibilities emerged. We calculated that if we could finish the stairs so we could finish the attic (at least to liveability), we could put Mum and Dad there and give the grandparents Mum and Dad’s bedroom (the only private space in the house apart from the bathroom).

By the 20th of December, the date of the below photo, we were feeling the pressure...

This photo is of Mum standing at the top of the stairs (which I conclude must have been completed since the framing up a month before). I just draw attention to the area around her feet. Her right foot is on the top step/attic floor; beyond her foot is a white area. That is actually looking through into the upper corner of the lounge room!

In this photo the bottom of the completed stairs can be seen. (The bottom three stairs were built a good while before the rest, actually.) As you can also see, gyprock has been put on the face of the stairwell and the power-points are installed and hooked up to electricity. Blick is in the process of plastering.

I thought it only fair to show you the area the stairs led to! This photo was taken the same day as the photo above, January 7th, 2008. This period was just prior to the Grandparents arriving, so the shelving details were being finished off before we moved Mum and Dad up into their new bedroom. Apart from the shelves and the palings above the shelving area, this is the stage we managed to get the attic to by Christmas Eve, in time for our guest. It had been a close thing, though; I think we had packed up tools an hour or so before we expected him. (And then he forgot to come! Classic anticlimax.)

The top winders turning around the top baluster onto the attic floor.

The black plastic ahead was eventually replaced with an unassuming door that now gives us our official access into the roof-space.

On the top right the ceiling can be seen to continue. That area is our storage space, a two metre square area that houses all our spare things – you know, board games, sleeping bags, spare bedding, dress-ups and so-on. The vertical palings on the right are actually one of the two doors that conceal that area, folded down.

Speaking of the ceiling, I’ve no better place to tell you about it since we didn’t see fit to take photos at the time we installed it. Originally (see second photo in this post), there was just bare roof iron (aluminium, actually) and rafters. We tacked foil-backed insulation in between the rafters (foil down) and then black plastic under that. The plastic is to help prevent the fibres of the insulation from coming through. Then over the plastic we stretched the light canvas and fastened it in place by nailing strips of timber down the lengths of the rafters. (This can be seen to better effect in the attic photo.) As the maximum height in the attic is about 5’3”, we had decided a soft ceiling was the way to go. (Yes, sorry, I am Australian, but I think in imperial terms when measuring spaces that are around a person’s size. Put it down to me being half Canadian. In metric terms, about 1.4 metres?) But more on this on my attic post, perhaps.

Hope you don’t suffer vertigo!

I’m so glad we did install that window at the bottom of the stairs, hazard or not. It not only sheds constant light on the stairs, it also helps keep the air moving (especially in summer!) and creates a lovely sunny nook that many people enjoy, particularly during winter lunch breaks.

I expect the lack of balustrade – on top of the steepness and narrowness , plus a window at the bottom – makes the staircase seem rather insecure, to be polite. However, the tightness of space and the attic floor being conveniently to hand combined to make negotiation of the stairs quite comfortable and safe. We were quickly thundering both up and down without a second thought. We became so used to it that once the balustrade was finally installed the staircase suddenly seemed almost claustrophobic! Socks were the main security risk. (But no serious injury to date.)

Showing you the other side of the staircase – the side sticking into the room that had been a kitchen, and in fact was still the washing up area. (The stove and everything was already over in the new kitchen.) Eventually, though, this room was to become a bedroom. By the way, the photo was taken to record Tlick putting up gyprock after having insulated the bathroom wall. The no-more-nails glue is, strictly speaking, unnecessary; however, as we always say, ‘Better safe than sorry’! Plastering isn’t that fun.

A wide shot of the stairs from the dining room.

Grandma and Llick painting.

Aha! And this photo, taken January 31, features Blick, plastering the underbelly of the staircase. Blick learned to plaster on this staircase/room, probably the most difficult area to plaster in the house. She deserves a medal for perseverance, if nothing else.

I wanted to show you how the doorway works with the staircase. As you can see, the stairs overlap the doorway by two thirds and the horizontal surface (the bit Blick is working on) doesn’t extend far before angling down. This meant that the door ended up hung so that it opens outward and lies flat along the wall to the right. (And that reminds me: the doorway is actually narrower than is conventional, so a door was custom made for the space. In design it is similar to the bathroom doorway.)

The bottom of the staircase underbelly ends in a little storage area under the bottom winders. This we’ve mainly used for storing the vacuum.

And that’s it! You are officially introduced to our Winding Staircase.