Perfect Landing

Our new and improved stairway is now roughed in. We had to have a longer landing to allow the stairway to end further into the hallway. This eliminates the head-height issue of people knocking their head on the way up the stairs. (At 5'0" I never seemed to have a problem...) Eventually the new landing will be nicer wood, stained to match the existing stairs, and Chris will try to use the old stair treads for the remaining stairs if possible - they were still in good shape. Here is the new landing. If you look back at the post from 9/27 you can see what the stairs used to look like.

Of course, extending the landing upstairs resulted in one of the few intrusions into the downstairs of the house - we had to steal space from above the hallway off of the kitchen and above our broom closet. In the picture above, I believe the white material currently to the side of the new landing is what used to be in our hallway downstairs. Below is what that hallway looks like now. This will get soffited (is that a word?) off and will look like it has always been that way.

Interesting story about the stairs.....we've been told by some neighbors that the women that lived here for the first 65 years after the house was built used to keep her jewelry in a secret compartment under the attic stairs. We've poked around a bit, but so far, no hidden trap doors or treasures found!