Creative Use for Under Stair Space

How my builder’s blunder turned out to be a creative use for under stair space in my home

I never thought to share my builders blunder with you until my hubby said “oh that may be good for your readers to know”. So here I am sharing the builder blunder. It’s actually inspiring…and good stuff.

When we designed and built our home 20ish years ago, there were arches designed in our build, going into our kitchen and into our master bedroom area. A design feature that I just love in our home. One day when we came by to check things out, unbeknownst to us, our builder decided on his own to arch an area in the hallway.

The above picture is walking down the hallways towards the kitchen. The below picture is coming from the other way outside of the kitchen.

Create a Wine nook

My initial reaction was “what, this wasn’t in the plan”? I thought the arch was going to restrict the view down the hallway…or so I thought. While I was envisioning how to live with the blunder, the mason who happened to be at the house appling stone to our outside patio area, knocked at the door to ask what we wanted to do with all of the leftover stone. Hello, little wine nook!

This area is under the stairs leading up to our attic. I think our initial plan was just to close it in with drywall to have more wall space. Creating a wine nook was such a brilliant idea to use this small space. I really loved that we could line the walls, and arch, with stone to create more of a ‘wine cellar’ vibe.

We had stone applied to all the walls in the nook except for the back one. My husband built this wine and beverage cabinet where we can put glasses, bottles, and bar accessories. I stenciled and painted it years ago. Moet was a nod to the champagne that we drank when we got engaged. A few years back I looked into getting someone to fabricate an iron gate, but could never make that happen. Now, I think I prefer it open to gated since it’s such a tight area anyways.

Create a Utility area

I am thrilled how the blunder became such a great little feature in the house. It made me rethink how to utilize under stair space in our downstairs as well. I created an area for a freezer and household items. I tiled the area years ago and recently painted it and created it’s purpose. Prior to that it was just a hodge podge of stuff. Shut the door and forget it about it.