Decision about new stairs

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mct1

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My new sunroom extension again, I'm afraid (but we're getting there).

There will be stairs down from the sunroom to a large utility room beneath. The stairs bend with a landing half-way so you can't see right down. We thought we'd have a door at the bottom of the stairs to keep the heat upstairs (we don't intend to heat the utility room 'tho it will have
a rad but now realise the stairs would need to be "boxed in" from the stair up to ceiling level for the door to work.

I'm not good at visualising but I don't think this would look good at all even if it's only a utility room. Should we put a door in or leave the stairs open?
 
You're right - this won't look good. And the stairwell takes out a good part of the sunroom too. Is there any other way to access the utility room? Utility rooms generally work best as an extension of the kitchen, but it's hard to know from your description whether there's any other way to access this area.
 
extopia said:
You're right - this won't look good. And the stairwell takes out a good part of the sunroom too. Is there any other way to access the utility room? Utility rooms generally work best as an extension of the kitchen, but it's hard to know from your description whether there's any other way to access this area.
Click to expand...

You're right the stairway does take up space but that's the only way down to the utility. Plus the sunroom's a reasonable size (6m x 3.7m) and it leads off the kitchen. I see you agree it won't look good.
 
If I were you I'd try and put the stairs externally outside the sunroom.
Even if it is internal, could you treat it the stairwell as an external space? i.e. plaster it with wood float plaster finish painted to match the exterior with an external grade sheathed wooden door?
I'd personally put the door at the bottom of the stairwell so you can see over the stairwell (if I understand what you are doing correctly).

For a balustrade around the stairwell consider putting in structural glass - without any balustrade.

It sounds like a rather unfortunate design by the way.
 
Is this utility room in a basement? Is there anything else down there? Tell us more about your layout. Remember, if you find yourself "having" to have a stairs in your sunroom, perhaps you do need an architect after all.
 
extopia said:
Is this utility room in a basement? Is there anything else down there? Tell us more about your layout. Remember, if you find yourself "having" to have a stairs in your sunroom, perhaps you do need an architect after all.
Click to expand...

The house is split level. The building extends the kitchen out and leads onto the sunroom. The utility room is under the sunroom and the boilerhouse and garage/workshop are under the kitchen. I agree the stairs in the sunroom aren't ideal but the only other possible place was the kitchen which would have been far worse.

It's too late to alter the layout now (and much too late for an architect's input) - and we had to tell the builder one way or another today, so we said leave the stairs open and we just have to cross our fingers that this will work out.

Thanks for your input everyone.
 
Hmmm. I would maybe have explored accessing the utility room from the garage or boilerhouse? But it's impossible to say without a better description.

By the way, it's never too late to make changes, at least when your builder's still onsite. What you are proposing to do sounds awful, to be honest, but it's your house!
 
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