Butler's pantry built under stairs

[kennyrussell]

Space under a stairwell converted into a butler's pantry using shelf storage units.

• The project
• More inspiration for your space-saving project

The project

My wife and I are not expert D.I.Y.ers. In other words, we won’t customise a solution to make it work, we will have a problem and look for a readymade solution. In this case, our kitchen cupboards were too full, so we looked for a shelving solution under the stairs.

The first issue we had was that there as already stuff under the stairs. So, you need to be prepared to throw stuff out or look for somewhere else for it to go. We did both. We were lucky in as much as we moved kitchen appliances from shelving in the garage to the new butler’s pantry and, in the displaced space, we put the stuff from under the stairs.

I suppose the main things for us is that we needed access to the shelving and to get to other stuff we have under the stairs. This constrained the width of the shelving. Also, the height off the shelving had to fit the lowest part of the stairs. With these constraints in mind, we than started searching a few websites but always came back to the Bunnings one because of the range you have. We found these Handy Storage 4 Shelf Units which fitted the width and height criteria we had. In fact, if you look at the photos they look as if they were made to measure.

They are quite flimsy as you build them but are quite strong in the end. We bought four units but only built three. We used the fourth unit to add extra shelves to the other three and the extra nuts/bolts to join the units together. So, you get more shelves and extra strength in one go.

Units built and surprisingly sturdy. Units bolted together to add strength.

Units filling up, a great space-saving idea. 

More inspiration for your space-saving project

Bunnings Workshop member EleventhCoastal also built storage shelves under a staircase and has included a step-by-step guide and a list of the materials she used. 

Community member Kathryn created wine storage and bookshelf using pallet timber.

Find more great ideas on space saving in our Top 10 most popular storage projects, 8 ways to use wasted spaces in your home and 5 clever ways to maximise storage in your home. 

[Dave-1]

Afternoon @kennyrussell 

I like your way of thinking, and the way you have folowe dthrought with your solution. We collect so much stuff and then "store" it away so it pretty much never gets used again. Crazy! lol Using the free space and finding something that works and is sturdy. Looks like you naile dall three!

Looks good.

Dave

[trish22]

What a clever use of dead space 

looks functional and tidy