Folding Attic Stairway

What good is an attic if you don't have easy access to it?

Trips to Home Improvement Centers: 2

The specs... The opening is roughly 18-1/2" x 52", the ladder has 9 stairs, framing the opening required four 8' 2"x8"s, one 1/4" thick 4'x8' sheet of plywood, and one 4'x8' sheet of R-5 foam board insulation.

Tools required included a reciprocating saw, circular saw, and rotary tool as well as the standard hammer and tape measure. Mostly Craftsman stuff.

This was one of those "this won't be so bad" projects that wound up taking almost three weeks to complete when all was said and done.

The opening is 18 1/2" wide and the majority of boxes we're trying to get in the attic are 19" wide. Go figure, huh?

Note the "hatch" at the top of the stairs. These folding stairways leave something to be desired in the way of insulation, so I borrowed one of my father-in-laws ingenious ideas and added the swing-open "hatch." Complete with insulated Foam board and weather stripping, of course.