For people living in a house with more than one storey, stairlifts or Small Elevators For Homes are often a necessity of life as they get older and find it harder to get up and down the stairs. Normal stairlifts have the disadvantage of being a permanent and visible addition to a staircase, while traditional small elevators for homes are bulky and often impractical for most homes.

A company in England is hoping their novel design will fill the gap in the market for a new kind of small elevators for homes. Terry Lifts, based in Cheshire, have built a futuristic-looking elevator that can fit into the corner of a room and ascends through a hole in the ceiling with no lift shaft required.

“You could describe it as a high-end chair lift. People don’t want, in many cases, a chair-lift on their beautiful staircase and they don’t necessarily want a lift; it’s about looking at the lift for the long-term future proofing the property. And unlike a stairlift which is a permanent feature on your staircase, the lift can be sent away when you don’t need it - so it’s never the elephant in the room,” said John McSweeney from Terry Lifts told Reuters.

Sally and Behram from Hertfordshire, north of London, were already in the process of packing up and moving from their two-storey house when Sally’s knee problems made using the stairs difficult; especially when trying to carry items up to the top floor. They had considered a stairlift but that option proved impossible for their home.

“We’ve lived in this house for 40 years and I have problems with my knees and muscles, and the stairs in this house are very step and narrow. So we needed to find either a bungalow or some means of getting me upstairs,” said Sally.

It wasn’t until they visited a new homes exhibition in the process of looking for a new place to live that they came across the Terry Lifestyle Lift. The couple said they realized almost instantly that it was the answer to their problems.

Terry Lifts says a complete installation will take 4 to 5 days, including all building and electrical preparation work. And while the elevator doesn’t come cheaply, it’s allowed them to remain in their home indefinitely for Sally and Behram.

“We can stay here now for the foreseeable future,” said Sally. “It’s just giving us the old life back that we had before as opposed to moving in to something smaller which might not have met our needs quite so well.”