Once I tilted up this homemade ladder, it took up much less room than stairs.

I used more pegs than I had to. You could say that many of them are ornamental. If you are going to have pegs, you may as well show them off. I also have some steel, but I hid it well. I have a split rafter (meaning one half of the rafter is from the drip edge to a girt on the second floor, and the rest of the rafter is a second 4"x7" timber up to the peak. Each rafter is secured with three timber locks (a 10" thin steel screw) and also joined by steel straps. Nothing fancy on the straps since they were snipped lumber banding secured by some penny nails.