The Stairway Shop

I ordered 2 large box newels and both were very good quality, as described on the website, packaged well, arrived in pristine shape and more quickly than I expected. I have no complaints at all. Really pleased overall. The price wasn’t the absolute cheapest, but I felt more confident in what I was getting vs. some of the competition. I was pleased that my 2 different sized newel posts did end up matching styles perfectly.

We bought the kit with the stairs. All components were substantial, made well and high quality. We stained and poly'd the stairs. The whole thing came out great and we love it.

the Stairway Shop had precisely the hand rail I needed. The existing garage attic stair railing does not extend past the attic floor. took some poking around on the site to find, but 'the Skylark Balance Rail" option was the right one. sturdy, not too difficult to install. didn't want a full cage, just the rail. Perfect!

It looks like The Stairway Shop is no longer offering factory-built library ladders, but only ladder kits now, so I don't know how useful this review will be: Overall, the product is good quality, and the price was excellent. Choosing the factory-stained option was a mistake. The choice of wood stains was very limited, and the walnut stain arrived looking very different from the picture on-line, so I wound up completely disassembling the ladder, sanding it, and applying 4 coats of a different stain. There were only 2 rung supports for the 9 steps, and the supports float about 1" below the rungs, so those seem pretty useless. Though the big cast iron hardware like the upper & lower rollers were black, all the screws and accessories in the ladder were all shiny stainless steel. Since I had taken the whole thing apart to restain it anyway, I also took the opportunity to paint all those screws and other metal components black to match, but I feel like when you choose black as the hardware color, everything should be black. No wood screws were provided to attach the top shelf, and the pre-drilled holes were not countersunk, which you would need since the top shelf would necessarily need to use flat head screws to create a flush surface. Upon reassembly, the ladder is slightly warped. This may be because of the whole disassembly, stripping, refinishing, and reassembly, which I kind of feel like I shouldn't have had to do in the first place, but still, that's on me. It may sound like I'm complaining a lot, but for custom size library ladder with an extra-long track, the price truly was amazing, and I had been shopping around for a good couple months weighing the various options, and this really was a fantastic deal despite the extra work I had to put into it in to get it looking exactly the way I thought it should.

The stars are heavy duty as advertised. They work well and the instructions for installation and use were accurate and easy to follow. Our only issue was with the shipping. One of the lips that seals the hatch to the ceiling wall must have gotten bumped. There was a significant bend at the corner and part of one side. It wasn't worth it to us to return. We gently returned it close to original shape. When we repaint we will use some touch up paint where the bend chipped the paint. Great stairs though, easy to use and very sturdy.