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Willowcrest without 2nd stairwell HELP


Tabby

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Hi all! Hoping you can help me.

My kit was missing the 2nd floor upper stair stringer. I've spoken with greenleaf. It was missed on the sheet and they were working on figuring out but I hadn't heard back.

So... I cannot put in the 2nd floor stairs and decided to simply omit them, go with more 2nd floor space,  and do a nice railing the whole way across the 3rd floor (saw someone else did this and it turned out lovely).

So the problem is that although the instructions say that the 2nd floor stairs are optional, it doesn't say what to do about the interesting new gap between the two bathroom walls on the right side of the bathroom doorway if you omit the the stair wall.  

Anyone done this or have any advice or ideas? I've thought about taking the wall I am omitting and cutting the floor tab off on the bottom and just cutting to fit but wondering what others recommend. 

Thanks!

Tabby

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Hi!

Thanks for the quick response! It's actually this gap. So this is the bathroom with the bathroom door. You can see the gap between the bathroom door and small portion of wall and the bedroom/bathroom wall. I'm not sure how to close that up since I'm not putting the stairs there now. :( 20181007_185032.jpg.e6ce9d192eba0b75ef40

20181007_173011.jpg

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Side note - none of this is glued. I usually mask everything first then go back and glue. This is my first full house (but I've done room boxes before). I don't think I've done something incorrectly - Who knows though! lol 

But my thought is that if these pieces are correctly placed, which I think they are, and the 2nd floor stair is optional, that there would be something in the instructions of how to adjoin those two walls (another piece or something) if you aren't using the stairs ?

Thanks, 
Tabitha

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I haven't built the Willowcrest (it would never tell me how to bash extra rooms onto it), but you can use mat board or foam board the same thickness as the wall and hold it perpendicular to the side wall (right side in the picture) against the wall with the gap and trace along the partial wall.  Carefully cut with a cork backed steel straight edge and a craft or utility knife with a new, SHARP blade to get the piece to fill in.  Once it's in place and spackled over and sanded smooth you can paint or paper it and who will know?  You could always stick a spiral stair to the third floor if you wish.

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That's a great idea! I like the idea of a spiral staircase too. First house so I'm still inexperienced. I've been relying heavily on advice from others, blogs etc. But this I couldn't find anything on so I'm grateful for the ideas. That sounds much simpler than the idea I had of cutting the piece I wasn't going to use and scaling it down to fit. 

 

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Oh! I couldn't tell. It is odd that there wouldn't be a replacement piece since the staircase is optional. I thought maybe I was just missing something.  Lol

I appreciate both of your help with this and super quick responses. My first house so I'm totally green to this!!!

:)

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I'm bashing two Victoriannas together right now (it's the half scale version of the McKinley) and ended up with a lot of gaps like that due to moving staircases or changing the room layout. I like to turn them into closets or built-ins when I can. Here's a gap I had because I left out a staircase:

victorianna306.jpg

I filled it in with shelving:

victorianna307.jpg

On the other side of the wall (a hallway), it just looks like a regular wall. I had to cut down the original wall to since the shelving was wider than the gap.

victorianna308.jpg

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That is also a good idea. I hadn't thought about literally just plugging up the area with a piece of furniture and that is an easy fix I could handle lol 

Honestly since its my first house I am finding myself soooo nervous about making alterations to the existing floor plan. But I'm starting to realize that sometimes the risks are necessary ones haha

I've been kicking this layout around (first picture) but I'm nervous about all of the changes I would have to make to reverse the stairs and create a hallway like that. It would mean losing the bedroom entryway in the back and shortening that bedroom wall for one. It would also involve putting the cutout for the top of the stairs in the back instead of where the cutout is supposed to pop-out now. 

The 2nd picture is what I'm thinking of going with... Maybe leave the 2nd stair how it is meant to be (facing the front of the house) but leaving the back of it exposed in the little cubby that comes in from the bathroom (they give you some kind of weird cover for the back of the stairs and I'm not crazy about how it looks). So under the stairs would be like a little storage space? Of course that means that I either have to find a way to fix the stair (the missing small top stair stringers makes it just shy of the 3rd floor) - or - I could always measure and just buy a replacement stair ? 

Two things I know I'm going to try to do: (1) cut out that doorway from the kitchen into the entranceway and make it a wide opening so you can see the bottom of the stairs on the first floor (3rd pic is example), and (2) I'd like to put a railing across the 3rd floor like in the last pic, but put it the entire way across the third floor (so I'm not going to use any of the existing railings they give you for the top of the stairs in the attic). 

What do you all think about that idea as a fix? Do you think it would work? Does it look okay?

fyi that weird wall to the left of the stairs in my pic isn't the actual wall that goes there so that's why it looks short of the 3rd floor. I just kind of wedged something in to see how it would look until I decide on the stair issue - didn't wanna pop out the stair hole in 3rd floor so the real wall won't fit. 

hallway w front facing stair.PNG

20181009_150212.jpg

open wall idea.PNG

railing.PNG

Edited by Tabby
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Yeah that is what I was thinking. That would be cute. Little storage boxes and a Christmas tree tucked away lol! Little boxes with ornaments... Oooh the ideas now... haha. 

My grandmother and I were always going to do one of these together and just never got around to it. I finally bought this house last year and she just passed so I decided that it had waited long enough. It is incredibly addictive. I was at work today and couldn't stop trying to think of possibilities and couldn't wait to get back home to try them to see what would work lol

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  • 1 year later...

The Willowcrest I bought 26 years ago came with all the needed pieces (some had to be re-cut in better plywood), but, in order to expand the tiny bathroom, I cut an opening to fully expose the under stairs area, added a panel to cover the steps and installed a toilet there. Voilá! A bigger bathroom with more room for creativity.

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Hi Sirena, 

 

That's a good idea too! Thank you for sharing it. I am still stuck on the first floor unfortunately (I keep changing my mind about what I want to do down there... lol). I think when I get to the 2nd floor I am going with the larger bathroom and eliminating the 2nd floor stair altogether. And I know what you mean about pieces having to be re-cut as well... I may need to do that with some pieces of the first floor stair actually. 

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