Looking to do something with the space under your stairs? Throw up a few boards of wood to make under stair shelves. It's an easy, hour long job, so don't start getting nervous on me now.
I live in a 180 year old house. As anyone who owns an old house knows, this means 3 things: really curious plumbing, foundation holes large enough for a circus clown to get through and no storage space.
When you don't have any closet space it means you have to find places to put everything normal people would put in a cupboard or closet. Things like my cookie making supplies, extra garbage bags, wreaths made entirely of actual bones and other perfectly normal stuff. You can learn how to make your own bone wreath here, I know you want to.
We all have those things in our houses. I'm sure you do too. The cobweb that's been there since 1982 that you never noticed until your mother-in-law helpfully pointed it out. My stairs are one of those things. They're horrific but they've been this way since I moved in (they've probably been this way since 1840) and for some reason I just accepted that this is how they always had to be.
One sad little shelf on the left as you go down the stairs, chipping paint and crooked stairs, three of which have indoor outdoor carpet stapled to them. I have no idea why, only 3 stairs were carpeted but I'm guessing whoever had this house before me had a really intricate and interesting way of going down stairs. Like hop, hop, hop, JUMP. Something like that.
A few years ago I finally got sick of wrestling my food colouring away from the centipedes so I cleaned up the area leading down to my basement and created some storage under the stairs by adding in shelves.
Job number one was removing everything that was shoved around the stairs. I obviously didn't need to clean the area because as you can see even though it was messy I had always done a fantastic job of maintaining the cleanliness of my staircase.
I wiped and Windexed and washed the staircase for an hour. For overkill you understand. And then I painted and vacuumed the rubble walls of Chez Centipede because it was either that or try to book an exorcism.
Once the area was prepped, I could build the shelves.
Building Under Stairs Storage
To build some quick shelves under your stairs you just need some brackets or pieces of 1x2 to support the shelves and any wood that's as wide as your staircase.
Basic flat boards that are 12" wide will work well, but you can use multiple boards. Three 4" wide boards or two 6" wide boards for example.
In my case I had a junky piece of ½" plywood to use for both the shelves and the supports.
Would you like to save this stuff?
We'll email you this post, so you can refer to it later.
- Measure the width of your stairs and cut your wood ¼" shorter to account for wonky walls. Paint them if you're feeling ambitious.
- Screw 12" long strips of wood or standard shelf brackets into the wall under the stairs.
- Place your shelf on top of the supports. Screw or glue the shelves in place.
Done.
Build Extra Storage Space into Your Basement Stairs.
Throw a few boards up under your basement stairs and gain extra storage space in just an hour.
Materials
- 12" wide boards (or the equivalent)*
- Shelf brackets or 1" x 12" strips of wood for support
- Screws
Tools
- saw
- drill
Instructions
- Cut the 12" wide wood to the width of your staircase.
- Screw brackets or strips of wood into wall to support the shelves, allowing enough room to set the shelf on top.
- Rest shelves on top of supports and screw in to secure.
Notes
* If you don't have a 12" board you can use three 4" boards or two 6" boards to get 12" of width.
My stairs still look like a bit of a nightmare but it's way better than it was and I have extra storage.
When I was done with the shelving I also did something crazy. I carpeted EACH AND EVERY STAIR. I know. Extravagant.
The stairs are still wonky and there's nothing I can do about that. They feel safer now and cleaner.
Plus now instead of being creeped out every time I have to go into the basement I kind of like it. I'm greeted by smiling jars of jam, chili sauce, peaches and tomatoes beneath the stairs. The pickled beets don't really smile. They're moody.
There are some people who will be able to take this very idea and apply it to their own home. For the rest of you, let this be a reminder that sometimes awful things can be fixed fairly quickly. Sometimes you don't even notice the awful things so maybe take a day to actually look for them in your house. You know. Before your mother-in-law does.
Feral Turtle
A great use of space Karen. I only have one jar of bastard beets left......I will have to stretch them until fall!
LazySusan
My "basement" stairs are outside and part of the deck. I'm pretty sue the "basement" was tacked onto the house as an after thought, since it's accessible only from the exterior of the house. The house is on the side of a hill, so it's a half basement with no drain. The underside of the stairs to the upstairs were encapsulated into a storage room accessible from the garage. So I can't do this, but I'm glad you did. What a difference it made! All nice and clean looking, and organized also! Did you use a brush or a sprayer to get that covered so well? I now have basement stair envy, something I previously would never have thought possible.
Mel Owen
My Aunt & Uncle had shelves like that on their basement stairs when I was a kid. They had a thick piece of wood hinged on the right side and held up with a barrel bolt or two. When they needed something from the shelves, they un-did the wood and put it across the "abyss" like a drawbrige, to rest on the left-hand shelf. Then they could walk right up to the shelves & get what they needed.
Nancy Blue Moon
Great job Karen..I so wish I had a basement..even an old spooky one like yours..I need the storage space..
Valerie
I have come to the conclusion that organized functional basements, no matter what their vintage is are one of the keys to carefree mental health. My home is the same age as yours. My basement stair approach is similar to yours and once down there it WAS (notice past tense) a disaster. I made a choice between the guest room and the basement and after consideration ended up putting a few thousand dollars into the basement. I had a fellow come in and line every wall with inexpensive wood sheeting and erect 3 foot wide shelves on all four walls that surround the wood stove down there. He cursed and swore throughout as the cement floor is so uneven. It will be finished this week and already it is beyond perfect and my mental health has stabilized, at last.
The only concern I have with your stairs is that there is no hand railing. On closer examination I recognize that there is no place to put a railing on your stairs. Here is my suggestion: on the right hand wall about three steps down, just hammer a perpendicular length of a 2 by 4 into the wall so if you happen to lose your footing on the way down you can reach out and grab the wood. You can cover it with florescent paint; I realize it doesn't "go" with the new carpeting but may save you one day. Steel wool in the wall cracks will help to stop the mice - the coarse steel wool not the fine. There is also a device on the market now that emits some type of noxious sound that only mice can hear (?) and evidently works well. I have no idea if this tiny machine is useful.
Big nails in the floor joists above are useful also for hanging things also.
You are a terrific example to those of us out there who are daily doing our stuff - it seems, endlessly.
Linda Penrose
OK, Karen, I know that you have more than 20 or so mason jars of preserves. Where are they?
Karen
Nope, that's really it. I make enough of everything for one year. So I have a few jars of jam left, peaches, chili sauce, and tomatoes. I'm dangerously low on tomato sauce because I used so much last year making pizza sauce. Ditto for the chili sauce and pickled beets! I have 1 pickle left in my fermented pickles and then that'll be it for them. Check back in the fall. That's when I'll be loaded up with cans! ~ karen
nancy
Hey, we just finished our stairs. This house is only 75 years old, but the basement stairs are very rough and were painted battleship version of green. A while back, I decided to paint the basement walls yellow and the ceiling sky blue cause I am from the Southern part of the US and we paint our porch ceilings blue. But, I don't have a porch now.
Anyway, that made the stairs really look worse so I primed and painted all that yellow too. Then all the millions of cracks and crevices of rough carpentry showed up so I caulked allllll of them, I thought I would never finish. After repainting all the caulk, I realized latex paint is not so hot for stairs, haha, what a mess, so beat up so fast. So, we stapled some attractive enough (cheap) carpet runners from Target down and now the stairs are so quiet. And so much nicer looking. And calmed down So Much freaking yellow.
Before all this, my husband cut a hole in the wall under the stairs and made a little hobbit looking door, we keep suitcases and the bales of toilet paper and paper towels in there. Very handy use for otherwise wasted space.
Stephanie
Excellent as always Karen. A friend of mine who is a serious canner (her cantaloupe jam and ginger pear jam - yum) and lives in an apartment just discovered that her couch is the perfect height to hide her jars under, so she built a long low box the height of the jars, painted it the colour of her couch, added tiny castors and whalla - her jams and jellies have a new home - hidden from sight and out of her teeny tiny kitchen.
Patty
My parents have similar shelving in their house which has a stairwell a lot like yours. It's an old farm house that has been handed down through the family. My grandmother made sure everything had a place to go, so for a very old house there is a lot of storage. In the stairwell going down to the basement she had shelves put in like yours but also put in shelves on the left hand side (where you have your paper bags lined up). They are slightly narrower then the ledge. Then on the upper right hand side she put in extra nails or hooks to hold other odds and ends out of the way. You may also be able to stick some hooks on the bottom of the upper stair (where they start to turn) if you have some small short things to hang.
Nancy
When I open the door to my basement, it looks EXACTLY like yours (except our walls are painted a sickly green color.) We've lived in our house over 30 years and I've only been in the basement a handful of times. The creaky stairs, the spiders, the cobwebs, the dirt floor - no thanks. I love your ideas, however, and will pass them along to my husband!
Jenifer
Great job! OK, so my house is only 145 years old so obviously my basement has smaller spiders. I would love to add shelves but I (OK, my husband but whatever) can barely get down there without hitting my/his head now so...I know, I know, he should just take one for the team! Big Baby!
Here's a tip for any potential mouse issues...mice of any size are not welcome in my house:
Put some Peppermint oil on some cotton balls and place them strategically around your shelves. This will keep them and some other critters at bay. I've been using this trick for a couple of years now in our basement and camper and it's never failed me. I've also heard that cinnamon works for bugs but haven't tried it yet.
BTW-what are the 'trays' under the canned peaches??
Darlene
Beautiful! Wait where is the cooking making stuff that started this project???
Laura Ingalls Gunn
Fantastic~ well done!
So now there's a closet with my name on it that I have been ignoring. Thanks for pointing it out. Thanks ALOT!
You're such a cheerleader. Yes, that's internet sarcasm. :)
Karen
That's what I'm here for. To make you feel better and worse about yourselves all at the same time. :) ~ karen!
Heather
The pickled beets don’t really smile. They just aren’t that way. They’re kind of bastards.
You do make me smile.
marilyn
great job
Karen
Thanks M! ~ karen
Emily Carver
Reading this made me smile, laugh and remember...remember how much I love reading your posts. It was my routine to read you every morning but something happened, don't remember what, and I hadn't in a while. I aspire to be like you when I grow up! I love doing things with my tools... I bought a new sander the other day, the kind with a little bag on it so if I wanted I really can sand in the house. Anyway... you rock !
Emily
Karen
Welcome back Emily! ~ karen
judy
Usual Genius but can I make a teeny tiny suggestion? Get some paint the same color as the stair carpet and paint that little landing, it still smacks of the before shot and detracts from all of the hard work you put into this result. I know this was not a half hour job it must have taken a lot of running up and down and how you got that whole area painted is beyond me. I have realized you are a super Woman in a surprisingly small body. So from now on I refuse to do anything beyond the minimum effort to keep from having the house condemned. I am old, tired and I have BEEN CLEANING,COOKING,WASHING FOR several hundred years and I pass the baton to all of you. I am going for a very slow stroll in the Sunshine.
Karen
Well may be for old times sake you could come paint my landing. ;) I didn't paint it because it's actually a piece of plywood set on top of the actual landing which is even worse than the plywood. The plywood isn't quite the right size. So I want to cut a larger piece and put it down. Even though I probably won't paint it but might carpet it. Haven't decided. :) ~ karen!
judy
Hey!!You can't imagine how tired I actually am. I have decide to come to your house under the guise of "painting your landing" and instead I will move in-in the dead of night while you are hanging from your bat perch in that spooky basement- a huge van will show up and move my junk in and then I will adamantly refuse to move or paint! I will claim some sort of illegal worker status and demand to see the American Ambassador.........I am sure I'll kick the proverbial Bucket before sweet kind Canada will deport me. So there! Miss nasty pants Be seeing ya...
Karen
LOL. You're right. Canada would probably just give you a flag and ask nicely that you behave yourself while here. ~ karen!
Cussot
Aha, I, too, was wondering why you hadn't painted it. It looks like such a DESTINATION in your photographs that it deserves something beckoning. In part to reassure the salesmen being lured to their doom, but mostly to lighten your heart - before the centipedes get you, of course.
Su
Looks great! Paint hides such a multitude of sins.... damn beets are just too smug all pickled and canned like that
Tigermom
Hooray! This is one of my favorite types of posts. I love to make things better and prettier. It is quite the improvement and has me shamed at the current state of my garage.
Mary
You're so smart. Great job!