Have you had a chance to tour our latest tiny house, The Wild Rose?

We love how this tiny house turned out!  It truly has everything, lots of storage, but feels bright and spacious inside.

The spiral storage stairs between the kitchen and bathroom are one of my favorite projects in the tiny house.  

A few of you have been asking for more details on how we built the tiny house stairs, so I thought I'd put together a quick post that hopefully answers some questions.

Since we live in Alaska, all of the plumbing must be inside the tiny house to prevent freezing.  So what I did was loft the bathroom up 18" and hide water tanks and plumbing under this area.  But this wasn't quite enough room and I needed a cavity to extend the pipes over to the kitchen sink and washing machine, so I also built the second stair at 18" and just made it an extension of the lofted area.

This gave us room to put the water pump under the second stair hatch.

I then built a pantry right next to the lofted second stair, with the plumbing pipes hidden in the back of the pantry.  The pantry height (63") is about 18" (standard chair height) lower than the loft, so it makes transitioning from the loft on to the stairs easy and natural.

So then I just needed to build stairs between the lofted second stair to the top of the pantry.  I designed all the stairs to have a 9" rise, and just made each one as I went.

I just ripped some 1x10s down to 8-1/4" for the sides of the stairs, and then added 1x4s on top to tie together.

I attached the stair framing to the lower lofted area with Kreg Jig pocket holes and screws.  This also allows the stairs to be taken appart should there ever be a plumbing issue.

We had leftover 1x6 tongue and grove from the ceiling, so I used it as the finished material for the top of the stairs.

For the next stair, I started the spiral by bringing the stair halfway back on the outside edge, using the same construction method as the lower stair.

The next stair is a full triangle all the way to the corner.  I tied this one into the wall and the pantry to secure.

Then the last stair I went half the distance over along the wall, securing to the wall and pantry.

The results are very sturdy, with the bulk of storage being in the pantry, but lots of shelving with zero wasted space in the sprial stairs.  

The client loves natural wood tones, and wanted to keep the finish as clear as possible.  There is only one clear coat that I know of that you cannot even tell if it is on or not.  No yellowing, no wet wood look - just protection that you can not even see.

Varathane Poly in Crystal Clear.  It is easy to apply, easy to clean up, and is very durable. 

We are very happy with how these tiny house stairs turned out and are excited to share with you so you can build too!  If you do build, please share, would love to see how your tiny house stairs turn out too!

XO Ana

PS - If you need a greater rise and don't need the storage, check out these alternating tread loft stairs I built for our cabin.