Comments on: Under stairs storage: brilliant

By: Under stairs storage - Cool | byteco.de

Under stairs storage - Cool | byteco.de — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:35:35 +0000

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By: At last, somewhere for all those shoes

At last, somewhere for all those shoes — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:38:48 +0000

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By: Maple

Maple — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:22:19 +0000

Under step "Pull out bin" How-to http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/woodworking/4212966.html

By: sak

sak — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:42:25 +0000

how much does this sort of thing cost in ££££ what is needed

By: Carly

Carly — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 10:09:55 +0000

I really love the idea!
For those of you who are terrified that someone might leave the drawer open… there’s a few simple solutions to have the close automatically… for one, you could have the actual drawer go in at a slight angle. The steps would be parallel, but the drawers would go in as an angle. It would be harder to make, and the bottom stair wouldn’t have a drawer, but if you’re desperate. Or, you could be more simple and use elastic to make resistance to keep the drawer open. The drawers could also be locked.

By: anarkissed

anarkissed — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 01:26:51 +0000

if the stairs are open on the back side and you don’t have another staircase and ceiling with drywall underneath, you can also just install shelves under the stairs and access it from the rear. The lowest stair could hinge open or even have a garage door type front, allowing you to access the storage without going to all the expense and trouble of installing what is essentially a gimmick. It looks neat and would be useful, but ultimately impracticable.

By: Trap

Trap — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:40:23 +0000

Making wooden stairs ourself I was pleased to see this idea. On the other hand I agree with Adora, for stair manufacturers its a risk to produce something like this.

By: Samrat

Samrat — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:40:14 +0000

Idea is good, it can even be used as a Safe for keeping valuale things as will ensure safety (An unusual place to keep things)

By: Leslie

Leslie — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 17:18:04 +0000

I grew up in a house where each step was a drawer. We had eight kids and I can’t ever remember an accident. Each drawer had a catch on it, so that when it closed it latched shut. Plus, my mum taught us to close them when we finished with them. It was somewhat of a game to kick the drawer closed for us. We kept toys and games and books in them. We didn’t label anything, just learned where everything went. To this day, I bet there are still old games and toys in some of them.

By: Tips Of All Sorts

Tips Of All Sorts — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 10:09:15 +0000

Better keep an inventory list indicating which step stores what.

By: Ari

Ari — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 17:26:27 +0000

We did this in our house using piano hinges for the top two steps. If you’re interested in seeing a pic, email me at arigold99ATgmail.com

By: Sara

Sara — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:06:22 +0000

Verne A makes a good point: If you have access to the underside of the staircase, you could install a cabinet of sorts that has drawers that get deeper as you move towards the bottom of the cabinet. This gives you better use of the space normally too far back & too shallow for storage without having to expose the drawers to a high-traffic area. Remember, if the space under the stairs is not available, drawers won’t work no matter which way they face.

By: Pyromaster

Pyromaster — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 20:41:23 +0000

I think this is a great idea for space concious homes.
As for keeping them closed, a light spring could be used to close the drawer. If attached to the back side and then to the drawer housing it would spring back when let go.

By: Sascha Grant

Sascha Grant — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 03:03:04 +0000

Imelda Marcos would love that!!

By: Louise

Louise — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 23:00:14 +0000

While I’m always excited to see innovative storage ideas (I live full-time in a 40 foot motorhome), I would have to pass on this idea. Unless the drawers were hermetically sealed, dust and dirt would get inside really quickly. The same would be true if the storage was bins instead of drawers. The dust on your floors is insidious; do you really want that in your storage?

By: Verne A.

Verne A. — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 14:43:54 +0000

I speak from the position of being a interior rail installer, I work with stairs every day.

Everbody keeps saying that north american stairs have a middle stringer, which is untrue. In most cases, only free standing stairs (stairs without supporting framing underneath) have middle stringers.

Stairs are installed by fastening through the stringers to the framing underneath, in addition to screwing through the top riser (upright kick surface) into the header.

With the glue blocks and wedges that secure the construction of the stairs, it is basically impossible, or at least extremely impractical.

You would have to design the stairs from the ground up, my guess about the easiest way to do it, would be to build structurally sound boxes (cabinets) and install them in the space.

The amount of drawer space you will gain from a standard stair is very small, a standard tred is 10 1/4″, the drawer starts back from the nosing an 1 1/4″, so you are going to end up with a max drawer space of 8″ or less if you use 1/2″ plywood.

And I would install the drawer slides on a 3 or 4 degree backward slant, we don’t want those drawers opening on their own when running down the stairs!

But the whole thing sounds like it wouldn’t be worth it, if you really want storage space, and not just a gimmicky toy, go underneath the stairs, and create a triangular closet or set of drawers.

By: quest1962

quest1962 — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 06:47:07 +0000

Back to the middle-stringer bit . . .
You could build it with just one face plate and 2 “drawers” so it still looks like a stair.

By: adora

adora — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 00:33:50 +0000

My friend’s house in Tokyo has these drawers. It works only if the staircase is supported only on the sides, instead of in the middle which is the case for many N. American houses.
Many N. American houses use pre-fab staircase components, pre-engineered by the manufacturers. They would hasitate to make something like this because of the possible lawsuit from people tripping over them when they forgot to close it.
Besides, many N. American houses have the staircase right by the entrance. The area underneath is already been used as closets.

By: Stoneddrow

Stoneddrow — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 23:01:16 +0000

I have done this before.
Remove the treads. Then risers. Double up the existing stringers. Heavy duty drawers slides work well on the inside of the new stringer. If the underneath of the stringers is drywalled, as it was with mine. You are very limited in drawer length. The set of stairs I worked on were leading down to the front door, foyer for a family of 6. Each 12″d X 29″w X 6″t drawer/step was delegated to one member of the family for their shoes, gloves, hats, walkmans. I did 12 steps like that.

By: senorstu

senorstu — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 14:59:03 +0000

I agree with the safety hazard of having drawers – it may even be a code violation.
The risers (the drawer front) also provide support for the tread and eliminating this would cause the steps to sag.
D. Reed’s hinge idea could be viable, though.