Under The Stairs - Ideas!

Eldi_Dos

A cheap and cheerful solution would be to attach a couple of battens running underneath the stairs, then on to the battens use vine eyes and wire or rope to support shelves which gradually get narrow.
These shelves would free up floor space and make it easier to keep a inventory of tools etc.

Edit: Personally myself I would not keep paint, white spirit or other inflammable materials under the stairs, they are your escape route after all but would put them in the shed/ garage.

ChilliBob

Cheers guys. 

The paint, is all waterbased, so should be fine. I'll check the Osmo oil though, not sure on that.

For now it seems my wife's feeling a bit impatient, and when seeing sketches I'd made, and I discussed ideas, she said that would probably take me a year to get round to and sort out :0.- harsh!

She mentioned another shoe rack next to the one we have. Personally I don't think it'll solve much, but I can get one for about 30 quid that fits well, then I can keep more custom ideas to myself, with a view to making them soon.

Found some spare flooring in the loft too, so can add a bit more flooring in there too. Bit of stuff on the raw plasterboard wouldn't go a miss either - as you can see, ive got paint to spare! He he 

FreeBear

ChilliBob said: For now it seems my wife's feeling a bit impatient, and when seeing sketches I'd made, and I discussed ideas, she said that would probably take me a year to get round to and sort out :0.- harsh!

Started redecorating the front bedroom some 18 months ago here. Still not finished. So a year to sort out your storage issues would be pretty quick.

Certainly needs some improvements. The consumer unit & gas meter both need to be readily accessible. Not a lot of fun having to move a mountain of stuff out to reset a breaker in the dark. And the meter man will not want to go spelunking to read the gas..

Also have a similar dump storage area under my stairs - Gas meter is outside, but CU is in the same location. Watching this space for ideas, and whilst pull-out storage is appealing, it is well outside current budget.

ChilliBob

Yeah, the front door is the most pressing job tbh, which I'm not looking forward to - wooden, needs some filling, sanding etc, double set of doors too - with two children (2 and 7) running around it's a bit of a challenge!

I suspect this extra shoe rack will buy me quite a bit of time tbh. Also thinking of filling the plasterboard screws and painting. I reckon for just under the stairs I could use Zinsser gardz on the raw plasterboard then a tip coat or two. 

Naturelover22

I will be interested in what you end up with as that is the same layout as our cupboard, we have no meters in it though.
Currently have a mid height shelf running along 2 straight walls, then recycling bins and mini sets of drawers on the floor under the shelves. Then plastic boxes/trays on the shelves with stuff in and lots of hooks higher on the wall. Works well until the bags for life take over the floor!

One thought is to section it into say 3 cupboards with doors and add floor to ceiling shelves with pull out boxes in them? May be a bit more organised and use the space better.

ChilliBob

So at the moment it's a two phase project.. 

Phase 1: repair and decorate inside, and replace cube unit with shoe unit. That's underway now been using filler, caulk and gardz today

Phase 2:, replace purchased shoe racks with custom built shelving/boxing in etc. Time frame, dunno, when my wife next kicks off that it's not suitable!

I do think this brighten up and clean out phase will make it a lot better for a while. As a bonus, declutted my decorating supplies, chucking out about 4 half used tubes of filler/adhesive etc! And got to use some of my pile of 'I'm keeping this wood as it might be useful one day'! Wood.