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Roundup: Best Staircase Storage Solutions

Gregory Han
Gregory Han
A Los Angeles native, Gregory’s interests fall upon the relationship between design, nature, and technology. His resume includes art director, toy designer, and design writer. Co-author of Poketo's "Creative Spaces: People, Homes, and Studios to Inspire", you can find him regularly at Design Milk and the New York Times Wirecutter. Gregory lives with his wife Emily and their two cats—Eames and Eero—in Mt. Washington, California, curiously investigating the entomological and mycological.
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updated Jun 3, 2019
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Kristin’s The Amazing Staircase is not only one of our favourite AT posts of all time, it’s a glowing example of utilizing limited space efficiently. Staircases are often overlooked for their storage space potential, but the interior architecture feature can often be converted by using the space ontop, inside, under or over the stairs themselves. We went hunting all over online to find similar combinations of staircases with storage solutions throughout the world for inspiration (alongside some of our favourite other AT staircase posts), all under the jump…

Josh & Donna loft project: a curvy wall unit with stairs/shelves that lead to an additional platform. We’d never would have guessed those were stairs.

Bokhylla Stairs: made of steel framework and MDF board, these shelves from Compact-Living.com double up as stairs for ascension to a loft bed.

Step Baskets: declutter the house, one step at a time, with these stair baskets from The Holding Company.

Alternating Tread Staircase: A Czech Republic home with one steep climb up, but the alternating steps make it easier and the storage on the side is perfect for larger sized books.

The top of legerdemaine’s work in progress spiral staircase incased by a semi-circular bookshelf. We can’t wait to see when it’s completed.

The d’shelf mounts onto the underside of exposed staircases for extra storage possibilities.

The L-shaped maple wood staircase by Splyce Design/Build Inc. leads to rooftop access while also hiding audio/video equipment and house a fireplace on the other side.

Carrie Meinberg Burke’s beautiful hidden dual drawers staircase.

Folio offers bespoke storage designs particularly for school libraries, including this CD+DVD storage unit incorporated onto the side of a staircase.

What to do when your old Victorian home has limited storage space? Look to the stairs, of course.

Voet-Theuns Architecten shelving curves slightly outward from the top to the bottom, making for a safer descent down its steep steps as shown on ATNY late last year.

Haddon Hall Storage-Staircase: nothing fancy here except a smart multi-bin storage solution under the stairs for items like shoes, umbrellas and other items you might want to grab before running out the door.

This loft staircase/bookcase looks too nice to walk upon, doesn’t it? We’d worry about knocking off those frames, clumsy us. But we know our cats would love something like this to traverse across (once again, we’d worry about those frames).

Kaidan-dansu (step cabinets) have been used in space efficient Japan for ages, but we like the modern simplicity of this custom multi-shaped shelving unit that leads up to a sleeping loft.

Got a wide staircase? Why not just build bookshelves following each step along the wall?

In this instance, the storage isn’t offered by the structure of the stairs themselves, but is hidden behind it!

A couple examples of staircase storage from Living Etc. Shoe cubbies are our favourite practical use for staircase storage since we prefer people leave their shoes off upon entering.

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