I'm sure this is a) dangerous, b) impractical, and c) over-dramatic, but I just had a thought. The bookcase stairs from the second to the third floor (renovated attic space)? What if we knocked out part of the central floor on the third floor, with a walkway/railing around the center of the room? So that the second floor library had a double-height ceiling? Wouldn't that be cool?It'd cut into the children's playroom, but the playroom is huge as it stands, and I think there'd be plenty of space left. Given how low the ceilings are in the playroom area, it's not as if later homeowners would be able to do much useful with the space anyway...
This is probably just an invitation for children to try to climb over the railing and fall to break their necks on the next floor, right? But it looks so cool in my head.
Tell me I'm crazy.
I blame this photo.
I don’t think that’s a crazy idea at all. I love things like that, and I really, really like that photo!
A little crazy, but looks very fun! I would be cautious about having that with the railing in the kiddos’ play area. Seems a little dangerous, even with the railing, especially if they’re climbers.
I was thinking if the rails were straight up and down, they wouldn’t be able to climb them? We’ll see what the architect says — he has kids himself and seems very safety-conscious.
We had a loft space when we were small, with a railinged area that looked out over the LR/DR. We got up to the space with a ladder, but we never tried to climb over (that was left to the ‘grownups’ in the family)…
Our second story had a loft that overlooked the living room (which was two stories high; excellent for Christmas trees), and the only kid-related mishap we ever had was my nephew getting his head stuck in between two of the railing posts when he was five (which was quickly solved.)