Gargage loft stairs - ideas?

[shocksystems]

Looking for ideas to finish my loft stairs in my garage. I have had temporary stairs in place since construction and they are loose and do not look very good.

I want to change the treads and the railing. I am not looking for anything museum quality. I want it to be functional, but also would like it to have a tough kind of industrial look. I was thinking maybe a pipe railing and the treads made of some sort of tough wood covered with something non slip?

If people had ideas and pictures to share i would appreciate it.

This is what it looks like now:





Cheers!

Jim

 

[kbs2244]

Stairs are a kind of specialty because of tread height and depth codes.
If you are happy with the basic stairs, I would go with your idea of pipe railing with at least 2 more vertical supports.
Then gray paint with black rubber treads would give you a bit of a factory look for little bucks.

 

[ddawg16]

Have you considerd spiral stairs? Much smaller foot print, they have some DIY kits made out of metal that look really good...and they look cool.

That is what I'll be doing...along with a trap door that I can open up to get larger items up into the attic.

 

[PurdueSD]

Your stringers look good. You just need to replace the treads and add some kickplates (risers). Finish the kickplates first with 1/2" plywood. Then, I would go with 2x8s/10s screwed down with 3 deck screws in each of your stringers. The railing can be done a hundred ways. I am going to leave mine off for now, being that i am the only one working in my shop and dont have any kids yet. A quick web search of deck railings will give you a million options.

 

[Vinko]

I like the idea of scrap stairs from Naval ships. I've seen this done a few times, and it looks good and doesn't take a lot of space. With the price of steel though, I bet it's a hell of a lot more expensive to do than it used to be.

 

[HHStang]

I'm not sure if this would work for you, or is even what you are asking about. But I used to live in a gated community that wouldn't allow exterior steps. Nor did I want to give up the floorspace.

I made two sets of retractable steps on pivots and used cheapie motors I got from HF to lift them. See pics below.