The Elevator Shaft
click on any image to enlarge

                                                                                        A David Cook Photo

These photos won't make any sense until we explain exactly what we're doing and why.

            Even if you only have a crawl space, you can provide for the future installation of a personal elevator.  By strategically placing a closet, approximately forty-eight inches wide by fifty-three inches deep, as an interior finished measurement, above a closet of the same dimensions on the ground floor and including a removable sub-floor you can do just that.  This little  10 square feet will allow you the flexibility later in life to install an electric lift/elevator in your home.
By providing yourself with this addition closet and/or storage space, on each floor, in your early years, you have opened a window of opportunity to one heck of a nice option for your golden years.
Your cost for labour and materials for this exciting option would not exceed $200.00 over a standard building design, to do the reinforcing and sub-floor work.

The idea is simple, but one of the hardest things to find space for in a home.  
Just a little bit of compromise.  A bit of foresight.  A bit of planning.   Just keep in mind
as you work through your design, that it's  a lot simpler to do it now rather than being
forced to move out of your home and leave your garden, your neighbourhood haunts
and your friends, because you can no longer climb those stairs.

Now here's a shot taken during our first Press Tour on August 5th, 1999 that illustrates more clearly the scale of the elevator we are talking about for the home.   Our photographer, David Cook, climbed up into the rafters to shoot down the shaft.   Patrick Simpson is standing in the hallway of the second floor and Gail Ferrier is in the closet under the main stairway in the home.  The crawl space is at the very bottom centre of the photo.

A David Cook Photo

We'll feature more photos as construction proceeds.