I recently installed a pull down attic ladder. In a treehouse, not an attic.
Here: http://www.wernerco.com/us/products/climbing-equipment/attic-ladders.
My maternal grandparents had a huge old house in Trumansburg, New York. It had an old farmhouse with a new house with doric columns built on front. There were formal front stairs and then narrow back stairs down from my mother's old room, under the eaves. There was a fireplace in every bedroom in the "new" part and the ceilings were 14 feet high. It must have been 5000 square feet without the attic.
There was a storage room between my mother's bedroom and one of the bedrooms in the newer part. In the ceiling was a pull down attic ladder. There were only a few times when my grandmother pulled that ladder down and went up to get things. Christmas ornaments. The attic above was huge and full of mysterious boxes. The store room was full of chests and boxes and antique toys and my mother's prom dresses from the mid 1950s.
My ladder is the compact one, light, narrow and claims to hold up to 250 pounds. I think that it will break if used as a trapeze. I want a separate swing and trapeze. The ladder pulls down in 3 sections and each section locks. If I don't lock it as I raise it, it all comes down at once.
The pull down ladder reminds me of my grandmother and her house. It is partly to keep the treehouse unoccupied when I am not in it. We will install a trapdoor to lock it. But it is also a remembrance.
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