My neighbor finally helped me find a way out of a conundrum that plagued me for several years. Ever since we moved into this house I had the intention of installing a roof garden, but I could not figure out how to access the roof comfortably and safely. Currently the access is through a very small hatch, to which leads a fire ladder, straight against the wall, with no angle at all. Nevertheless, last summer I managed to get up there, by means of a mountaineering backpack, about a dozen of 5-gallon buckets, tomato plants and soil and miscellaneous other stuff. This was done out of sheer impatience and clearly not intended as a permanent arrangement.

I kept looking at the space in the hallway, the ladder and the hatch, and I just could not figure out how to make it work. I have been through everything. There is not enough room for a spiral staircase, not enough room to install stairs or even a ladder at a decent angle. I was at my wits' end and had asked several people to look at it with me. We tossed about putting in another flight of stairs and going through a sky-light, building a bulkhead on the roof and other utopian stuff. I knew there had to be a solution but I just couldn't find it.

The other day my neighbor called and asked if I could help him with a computer-related problem. This neighbor is a Fine Artist who is painstakingly renovating his 19th century townhouse, pretty much doing everything by himself except for plumbing and electrical work. I went over there and I helped him. I was totally awestruck by the rooms he had finished. Then I asked him if he wouldn't mind to look at my roof access problem at some point "Because I just can't wrap my mind around it and I am sure someone is going to look it and think of something that just hadn't occurred to me." He said, how about right now. Fine.

We looked at the space for a while and measured and tossed around various things and he poked his head into the hole in the crawl-space and told me about how the joist were "sistered up" and why you couldn't enlarge the opening this way or that way. Then we looked into various untidy closets and contemplated stairs going right through the untidiness, but in the end, we decided that wasn't feasible either.

Finally my neighbor said it might be easier to cut a new opening someplace and we to wandered through the rooms gazing around and my neighbor peeked out the windows. The back room is narrower than the rest of the house, and there is sort of a light-well between our building and the adjoining building. A window in the middle room looks out into the light-well (which is not fully-enclosed but open to one side).

Here is what my ingenious neighbor came up with: We could use that window as door (it is low and tall) and then put a spiral staircase in the light-well going up to the roof. That would put the staircase outside and solve many problems.

I knew it! There was a way and I could not see it. Now I feel I can finally go ahead with this project. Next week I will start making phone calls and asks for quotes. I am nervous of course. I am not very comfortable "hiring" people. I hate to have anybody do work for me. But I can't install an outside staircase by myself.

I still have not totally resolved what exactly is going to happen on the roof. I have my ideas, but I need to have the access worked out first. I want to get it done, but I am in no rush. I need to have a very clear idea of what I want before I can do anything.  12:02:36 AM