The Puzzle of the Inaccessible Landing

Real estate investor Alan Corey draws our attention to a modern suburban design feature that I've never noticed or thought about, but maybe you have. It's the "inaccessible landing," or a shelf of sorts built into a two-story room, foyer, or stairwell that you can't use, because there's no way to get to it. There's probably a reason for it, but you'd have to ask an architect. It doesn't add to one's living space. Some folks have turned theirs into a decoration opportunity. If there's a window, you could add plants, although after a few weeks of dragging out a tall ladder out to water them, you'd give up and replace them with silk plants.

Another family got serious and built a playhouse on that landing, with a permanent ladder.

But many people just embraced the ridiculousness of the inaccessible landing and gave Corey some outlandish ideas of what to do with the space.

And of course, you know what happens to unused space every August.

The Twitter thread has proven so popular that it has landed on Know Your Meme. See plenty more outlandish suggestions and discussion of this weird feature that I will now pay attention to at Buzzfeed.