Our basement stairs are hidden behind a door right off the very small back hallway. The small area behind the door is mostly useless in terms of storage - lots of vertical space, but no way to get to any of it because you have to stand on the stairs. To improve usable space in the back hallway, increase storage, improve insulation, and generally open things up a bit back there, I decided I would build a folding, insulated hatch to cover the stairway.

The other day at the ReStore, we picked up a few very heavy hinges. They appear to be "door closer" hinges, which have a spring inside to automatically close the door. They're MASSIVE and look like the three of them could easily support a 300 pound door. Maybe I can use them to help keep the hatch up when it's in the open position.

Last night, I spent a little while in the garage, cutting scrap 2x4s and screwing them to the plywood hatch. I snapped a couple of screw heads off while tightening them down, so I had to countersink each screw head. It's a good thing I was screwing into plywood underlayment because I made a MESS of the wood surrounding the screws.

This weekend, I should have the 3 hatch parts connected by hinges and ready to install over the basement stairs.
I'll take a few pictures of the hatch. Stay tuned in the next few months because we might just knock out the whole wall that separates the back hall from the stairwell!