Temporarily remove the bottom stairs on a staircase to help move furniture

carpetfurniturestairs

I just moved into a new place and really want to move my awesomely large (and somewhat expensive) sofa into the basement. The problem is that the stairs end in narrow hallway running perpendicular to the stairwell:

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There is not enough room to get the sofa down the stairs and around the corner to the right without modifying the structure:

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I'm wondering if it's (a) possible and (b) not entirely stupid to temporarily remove the bottom stairs and carpet cover to accommodate the size of the sofa:

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The crawlspace floor is directly below the stairs, so I can access them from underneath if necessary. I'm also open to other suggestions. The only other entrance into the basement is through a window that is too small for the sofa.

Update:

Here is a picture of the underside of the stairs:

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Best Answer

I would echo the responses above, that modifying a wall would be easier/better than modifying the stairs. Based on your drawings, you'd have to chop out about half of the staircase - a major effort. Staircases like that one are built as a unit, then dropped into their place between floors, so breaking them up into pieces and reassembling in place would be a real pain.

Other thoughts:

  1. look into disassembling/reassembling sofa instead of house.
  2. look into completely pulling the staircase (instead of taking it apart), and putting it back as a whole unit. (also a major effort)
  3. look into pulling out one of the walls to the side of the staircase. You could replace with a post+beam instead of a new wall and have a more open feel in the basement afterwards.
  4. Find a new sofa.
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