Do These Things Now to Make Your Stairs Safer and Easier to Use.
Staircase season: It’s time to clean your gutters , and soon enough you’ll be putting up holiday lanterns or even taking on snow removal. You probably spend more time on your stairs during the fall and winter, but renovating your home should be as safe and easy as possible throughout the year. Here are some easy ways to make your time on the stairs safer and more efficient.
Make a toolbox
While you’re on your ladder, you don’t want to keep going downstairs to get different tools, and your kids may not want to act as co-executors in cold times, so rely on them to pass your stuff. may not be feasible for you. You need a ladder cart to keep all your items on top.
You have two options here, you can either buy one or make your own out of 3/4″ thick plywood. According to Family Handyman , you saw a hole big enough to fit on top of your ladder and then added some cutouts for tools like drills. They recommend wedging pieces of wood between the top of the ladder and the holder to stabilize it when one tool is removed so the other side of the cart doesn’t get weighed down out of balance.
Attach a magnet
One simple hack that will relieve you of more stress than you think is to attach a magnet to the top of your stairs. Screws, nuts, nails and more are easily accessible when they’re all glued to the magnet so you don’t have to fumble around in your bag or pray they don’t roll off the top.
According to Family Handyman, you can take any large magnet, as long as there is a hole in the center, and drill a hole in your ladder to attach it. Like a cart, you can also buy a magnetic bowl designed for this purpose.
Add traction and padding
Finally, add a few simple touches to your ladder to make it safer and more comfortable to use. First, you’ll want to make the bars safer with improved traction. You can find stair rung covers or duct tape at your local hardware store or online. This will be especially helpful on cold, damp, icy days.
After safety is taken care of, move on to comfort. You should never stand on the top three steps of a free-standing ladder, and even on safer ladders, you should avoid going up. On the upper steps, where your hips and knees are most likely to be tilted, attach some padding. You can buy some online or cut off the edge of pool noodles to make a pad. As a last resort, cut open an old blanket and tape it around the top rails. This will help with the pain that comes from leaning your weight against unforgiving wood or metal for hours.