Is a sliding door at the top, or a hinged door at the bottom of the stairs an option? Photos of your actual attic and existing stair would be helpful in sourcing a solution.

Best of luck,

Dr Retro

of Dr Retro House

What is the height of the ceiling at the top of the stairs and the distance between the wall and the stairs. Is the space a long narrow one. As already mentioned is there a possibility to have a door at the bottom of the stairs, any floor plans

Not sure on the 'difficulty' of adding walls and door but remember to allow a landing at top of stairs before the proposed door. The more the better but 750mm is too small so allow say 850-900mm+.

we did an attic conversion in our last house, the air con had 3 zones, the attic zone included the down stairs bathroom and laundry. Is there a possible small downstairs area at the bottom of the stairs available that can be shut off so that you can avoid trying to fit a door

in a similar situation we installed a heavy curtain at the bottom of the stairs and had a dramatic improvement ...replacing the lattice with glass and a curtain across the doorway should achieve a similar improvement ..installing a curtain track on the ceiling and full height drapes that can be drawn to the sides should also look dramatic and be more cost effective than any door

That looks like the dining room the stairs open into, perhaps they could share the air con?

unfortunately i don't have a photo as we no longer own the house... curtains will only work at the bottom of your stairs if the stairs were fully enclosed...upstairs try draping some sheets around the top of the stairs...thumb tacks or heavy duty picture hanging tape will allow you to test the sheets idea before committing but fixed glass panels at the sides of the stairs would retain the light and curtain track hung from the ceiling should not restrict the door height too much

What if you partitioned across both sides of the Attic stair case with a door opening into each now separate room, this would give you a small landing, how tall is the highest part of the ceiling

I just thought 2 way but certainly one way to the smaller space, without being able to do a site inspection the idea is to fill in the lattice walls with glass /gyprock and to extend these out to the highest point to allow for a small platform, a wall across the end of this should allow for a barn door to be fixed onto it

Adding to the two way door, the barn door could be two doors opening in each direction making the doorway wider but each door not requiring as much space on each side

only if the barn door slides along the flat direction of the ceiling but as your ceiling is lower than standard height you will need a custom sized door that will also need to hang below the ceiling leaving a gap at the top and around the sides of the door and suggest that closing in the side walls and using a well fitted curtain will be just as effective, cheaper, easier to install and won't be in the way when opened

I was only suggesting a sliding door that would be attached to the ceiling, the Barn door made it sound better. And yes your ceiling isn't a normal height so it doesn't matter if you hang a curtain or a slim line door panel from the ceiling it won't be full height.. The beam in the center of the ceiling is the suggested place to do this. Why don't you ask a cabinet maker to look at it for you.

Solid wall panels on the lower side walls with glass above to allow light into the stairwell.

You can also get easy bifold doors instead of a sliding door

a neat curtain will look no worse than a neat door but have you considered enclosing the whole staircase with storage underneath and the door at the bottom?

I think that would be a really good idea oklouise, as long as the stairs could be sheeted up with an extension at the bottom so that you could have a sliding door going along the staircase wall so as to give an anti room/entrance space at the bottom of the stairs. I wouldn't like to see an opening door at the bottom either in or out ie: out it will look like walking into a cupboard and inward opening would be dangerous if someone coming down the stairs was behind it. An entrance to the storage under the stairs would be to the right up against the wall with that door swinging inwards.

I Just looked at your second lot of photos and noticed that you have a return on the steep stairs, do you have a floor plan or more expanded photos showing what the room is like that the stairs go up from