Midland Attic Stairs can transform your attic space to enhance your home

Midland Attic Stairs can transform your attic space to enhance your home.

Company provides attic stairs, attic flooring and insulation all in one go.

HOMEOWNERS nowadays want to make much more use of every space in their homes and consequently, are looking at their attic space and exploring ways of maximising that space for either an extra bedroom or extra storage space.

That is where Midland Attic Stairs comes in and they can transform your attic space into an area that will provide a homeowner with valuble additional accommodation that will enhance their homes.

Midland Attic Stairs, based in Birr, Co. Offaly, was only started in January of this year by Pawel Romanowski but already has hit the ground running and the order books are full for weeks in advance.

Initially, as the name suggests, the company started just doing attic stairs but due to demand from customers has expanded into attic flooring and insulation as well and people are more frequently getting all three done together. He believes that the “green agenda” has been very beneficial to him as people are more aware of improving their homes and insulating them better.

Pawel is a native of Poland, where he worked in construction for many years. He did a three year construction course in College where students did two weeks in the classroom and the next two weeks on practical work, so over the three years, they spent a year and a half out working.

He moved to Ireland in 2006 and now considers Ireland very much his home. He is married to a local girl from Crinkill, Maura Deegan, and it was when they moved into their own house about six years ago that the idea for an attic stairs business first surfaced. Their home had an old style trap door and he wanted to install attic stairs but found the nearest businesses doing them were in Longford or Limerick and they weren't interested in travelling to do the job. Because he had carpentry skills he decided to install the attic stairs himself.

At the time, both he and Maura were working in full-time employment and they had a young daughter who was later diagnosed with autism. It proved challenging trying to work their employment hours around their daughter's needs and eventually they came to the conclusion that he would leave his full-time employment and work for himself.

He didn't want to start up something where he would have a lot of competition, and was looking for a niche market where he could do something no one else was doing. Then he remembered that when he was looking for attic stairs for his own home, there was no one else doing that in this area so he started doing his research and took the decision to start up an attic stairs business.

Pawel has been amazed himself at how quickly the business has taken off. He said it is hard to believe that just six months after starting he is working flat out every week and has constant bookings for 3-4 weeks in advance. He said he is now looking at getting a second van on the road to help do all the work as he said it is almost impossible for himself to do it all on his own.

He is also in the process of registering with the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) so that people he is doing work for can avail of the many grants that are available for insulating homes.

Pawel will travel long distances to do work. He says his location in Birr is ideal as it means within about two hours he can cover about 70% of the country.

He has also done some work with a green energy company in Mayo, who needed help to complete jobs for their own customers and he was only too glad to help out. That has helped gain experience and also make contacts.

He also had contact from another Polish man in Mayo, who installs attic stairs, and they have been helping each other out by directing work in each other's way. That man only does attic stairs so if someone also wants their attic floored and insulation, he contacts Pawel.

After just six months, Midland Attic Stairs is thriving and Pawel said he will soon be looking for office space and with a storage area.

He also said he would like to have a sensory area in this space, and use this area at weekends, maybe once a month, for coffee mornings or a meeting place where children with autism and their parents can come together and chat and let their children have fun.

“I have been here nearly 20 years so home for me now is here,” he said and that is also why he tries to keep his business local by using local suppliers. He said most of his suppliers are from the Birr area with the furthest supplier being from Longford. “Everything else comes from Birr or through local builders providers,” he added.

Pawel said that he is very competitive price wise and often from first contact to the completion of a job can only take a matter of weeks, so there is no waiting around for the job to be done.

He is pleasantly surprised, but delighted, at how quickly the business has taken off. He said that insulating a house is number one for energy efficiency and he emphasised that there are lots of grants available to people to improve their homes and those grants will contribute to lot of the cost of any job they want done and he encouraged people to check out the various grants that are available so that they can improve their homes.

Midland Attic Stairs is a local success story, and Pawel hopes that it will continue to grow and expand in the years ahead.

Pawel can be contact at (085) 1647490, info@midlandatticstairs.com or see his website midlandatticstairs.com