OFF TO THE ATTIC: Left, five-year-old Finn O'Sullivan makes easy work of his gran's attic stairs; right, stairs can be folded and raised to the ceiling. Photography Marianne Kelly.

DESPITE having a “deceptively big house”, Chris Allen decided it was time to head upstairs when she’d “had enough of the shambles”.

To the uninitiated the pitch of the roof on her four-bedroom, single-level house in Wattle Downs wouldn’t have presented much scope for another level without major building work. But Chris remembered the attic she’d had in a previous house.

She saw a HomeTech advertisement which described a cunning scheme to unlock storage space sitting above her head, just through the manhole.

She had been living in the house for four years, which was accommodating the lifestyles of three generations, herself, her daughter and her two grandchildren. An attic stairway presented a simple solution to achieving more storage space.

“Using the roof pitch is invaluable for getting things up off the ground, for example Christmas decorations and suitcases,” Chris says. “I could have had as much space as I liked with particle board placed over the whole ceiling.

“But it depends on how much space you want. The more space you have, the more is the temptation to put more stuff up there. And it’s silly to fill it up with stuff you don’t need. You have to be careful what goes up there.”

Paul Nielsen, HomeTech’s managing director says many people seem oblivious to the fact that they have loads of potential storage space literally sitting above their heads.

“Most houses have ceiling cavity space, accessible by a manhole. It is the access that makes that a problem.

“Putting in attic stairs is an extremely cost-effective way to open up this space making it easy and safe to access.”

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ROOMY: The house roof pitch isn't very high, but contains plenty of storage space.

Attic stairs are operated by unlocking an inconspicuous spring-loaded and insulated ceiling hatch. The ladder sections glide to the ground.

After use, simply fold up the ladder sections and gently raise the hatch to the ceiling.

It takes about two hours to install the stairs which can be done by a builder or home handyman.

Alternatively, HomeTech certified installers offer a 10-year warranty on installation, the same as the warranty on the stairs.

With the attic stairs tucked safely away in the ceiling, Chris is looking forward to clearing her garage and having space to put the two cars back in.

“There is plenty of room up there for me,” she says. “You get stuff you want to keep, stuff you use once in a blue moon — like the cat cage, those sorts of things;  even toys the kids are not using because it is so easy to access.”

Mr Nielsen says the main benefit of staying in a house, and improving it by doing things like adding storage, painting and landscaping, is the added value that homeowners make when they sell their properties.

Real estate agents, he says, agree that on top of most homeowners’ list of wants is ample storage space. Adding attic stairs is a simple way to add value.