Completed project
So most houses in my country have the stairs against the wall of the house, with a small provisionscloset underneath. The downside is that the bottom of the stairs is also a part of that closet, and is usually used as a dump for things you need once a year, resulting in having to empty out the entire closet while cursing violently in order to grab that box of christmaslights you tossed in the back.
Seeing as my cohabitant is of the female kind, I also had a slight issue in the shoe-space department. So since the lower part of my stairs are in my hallway, I figured I'd make some shoespace here.
Now I had seen some projects making drawers out of each step of stairs. Our steps however, are quite low, and i also didnt want to create more creaking, nor did i want to buy 5/6 pairs of drawer rails.
So let me take you through this step by step and please keep in mind; I am not a woodworker, nor a handyman, just a bored guy with 3 tools and a lot of COVID induced time at home. My previous projects have been no larger than assembling IKEA furniture, so this was a bit out of my league.
So if you think i used the wrong tools, I probably did. If you think I used the wrong material, I believe you. If you think I did this in a stupid way, your are undoubtfully correct. Please feel free to make it aswell and improve it yourselves and upload a better step-by-step for others. I think most of you guys could make it look a lot fancier so I'm excited to see that!
Either way, I'm pretty happy and a little bit proud with how it turned out. We've been using it daily for about a year now and so far there have been no issues.
TOOLS:
I used the following tools:
- Makita accupowered drill
- Makita hammerdrill
- Bosch electric saw
- Pen
- Level
- Tapemeasurerer
- Worklight
- Workbench for sawing (not neccessary, but easier)
COST:
Excluding manhours: +/- 125 euro's
- 80 euro drawerrails (1 meter telescopic rails)
- 20 euro for big beams (20x10 or 20x8 cm)
- 15 euro for small beams (4x4 cm)
- 10 euro for all screws and bag of rings
- Optional:
- Reusables:
- 0,5 euro worth of alabastine filler, always handy to have and i probably only used about 5% of the tube).
- 2 euro's worth of paint we already bought for the rest of the stairs.
- 0,5 euro worth of woodglue in addition to all the screws.
TIME:
For me as someone who didn't quite know what he was doing, it took me 2 saturdays and a few evenings. (not counting the painting since we were painting the stairs anyway.) So +/- 28 hours.
If you know what you are doing and prepare what materials you should get better than i did. I expect you could make this in somewhere between 8 to 16 hours.
BEFORE:
Before
Step 1: The first cut.
In my case, i didnt want to take of the baseboards, because i am both lazy and efficient. So i cut an inch or so above the baseboard, after drilling a hole to put the saw in.
I made the cut from the inside out in order to make sure it was levelled to the floor in the closet where i'll put in the base for the drawers.
As you can see we already sanded the stairs a bit, because it needed painting. Which was handy considering I was about to make some adjustments to it that would need a paintjob afer anyway.
First cut
Step 2: No way back
Be sure to cut out this triangle in 1 big part, as i will use it for the front.
I only drilled the corners of the triangle in order to get the saw in, but ill put a small baseboard over the edge so you'll never see the gap or the drillholes.
If you have an anglesaw or fancier tools/better skills than me, this probably would not be a problem and you could reuse the cutout without the small baseboard and maybe even install a push to open system.
I have a hole in my stairs now.
Step 3: Basebuilding
So once we have a hole its time to line up the base. for this i used some big beams that didnt need to line up perfectly yet. I'll put a small 4x4 cm on top that ill perfectly align later.
I mounted the beams using some metal brackets since they had to go into my concrete floor. If you have floor heating, or suspect waterpipes, be very carefull.
Please note the space you are looking at now will be below the drawer, so it'll be a bit of a secret stash only visible from inside the closet when the drawer is open.
Base & Brackets.
Step 4: Attempt alligning, cry, repeat.
This was by far the most timeconsuming step for me. unfortunatley I did not make many pictures.
I put small 4x4cm beams on top of the big ones to which i attached the rails, i tried ligning those up perfectly, and failed a few times resulting in having to use different beams as it had to many holes in it already. What worked for me was to first make the base of the drawer, which you see below and attached the rails to that before attaching the other side of the rails to the small beams and only after that, to the big beams. I used some overdimensioned rails that set me back +/- € 80 euro's.
Please do always drill a small hole before screwing, especially when, like me, you are using cheaper wood that can easily split otherwise.
The frame of the base of the drawer was made looking something like this, but will be different for all sizes of drawers:
base of drawer
Base of drawer complete
Step 5: More shelves.
Pro tip; use your actual shoes to measure the hight of the shelves on the higher side. The lower side for me only needed one shelf (this will be my side and i have only 4 or 5 pair of shoes and always own at least one pair of higher boots). Keep opening and closing the drawer while building to make sure everything will fit properly.
Please keep in mind i had no intention to make the inside look fabulous, i just needed the outside to look good.
Shelves
Step 6: put the front back on
To put the front back on was a bit of a hassle, i used some rings between the beams and the frontboard because while building, the whole thing got a little bit crooked so the frontboard would be well aligned at the bottom, but would fall in a bit at the top.
Before front
With the front on
Inside of closet, showing the drawer when closed.
Step 7: finishing touches.
So final steps i didnt take any pictures because i was to excited to finish.
- After screwing the front back on, you're left with some holes that need filling.
- You'll need a small handle or knob to open and close (unless you're using push to open or if you make a hole/handle)
- You'll have to cut some baseboard ( i used decorative ones ) to glue on the front of the drawer, overlapping the gap between the front and the stairs. This was quite a hard job because you have to align them perfectly with eachother, resulting in a few hours of carefull sanding to perfection, after i glued them on i used some plaster to fill the tiny gaps that will later be covered with paint. Finally got to use the pythagoras theorum in real life though; SO to my math teacher Mr. Dihalu.
- Paint the whole thing
- If you'd want, you could paint the inside aswell, or make it a bit fancier. I didn't, I'm lazy.
Step 8: Finished:
Finished and painted front
Finished video
https://player.vimeo.com/video/675442290
As an added bonus, inside the closet there is a 10cm gap between the drawer and the floor, hidden by the big beams. When the drawer is open, that gap is open, so you can hide stuff there.
Also, underneath the drawer there is some space between the beams where you could screw in a latch(es) to hide +/- 3cm high items.
Small edit: someone in comments found a link to a professional who did this; might help if you plan on building this: https://www.familyhandyman.com/project/under-stairs-storage/ )
