We’ll show the process photos later this week, but for now – the mostly finished loft ladder! (The wood pieces are just dry fitted now, they’ll be removed and taken down to the basement to get finished this week.) It took three of us (thanks Audrey!) to get the steel portion inside and into place, but it’s in. It was dark by the time we finished up today, so I turned on all the lights and tried to get a few decent shots.
Not a bad way to climb up 9 feet to a 200 sf space, huh? That’s 200 sf of unfinished space too. I’m still boycotting paint.
As the handrail extends up the ladder it straightens out and becomes a guardrail to the light well below. It’s also a good place to grab onto as you climb in or out of the space.
The handrails and treads are wood so that they’re warmer to the touch. The underside of the treads are notched to fit snugly over the steel treads (sub treads?) and will be fastened through pre-drilled holes in the steel plate. The handrails are also notched to fit around the tube steel handrail frame. We chose the inside face as the exposed side, not just because it looks awesome but because as you’re climbing the stairs your hand is more likely to wrap around the outside three edges, so it made sense for those to be wood.
The intermediate rods at the lower half of the ladder are there to meet residential code requirements.
We didn’t think we could have such feelings for a loft ladder, but we’re totally in love.
Steel and wood, you are hereby BFF at chezerbey.