Under the Sea Stairs

I washed my car on Saturday and had an awful job getting into the downstairs loo to retrieve all my car care goodies. I think every house probably has a dumping ground, a corner where things are inclined to get shoved until they can be dealt with at a later date or, as usually happens here, forgotten about altogether. Well, our downstairs loo is just such a space, and it also houses the underneath of our stairs in the form of an alcove in the corner that's bloody awkward to get at.

As I moved wellies and tins of paint and indicators and brake lights (bet you didn't know I'm a closet car mod enthusiast!) around, trying not to knock over the two golf bags full of clubs in the corner with the hose of the hoover, I thought how much simpler things would be if we had a set-up like this for our understairs space:

via Workbench

Clipped from an issue of Livingetc

Ideally, I'd prefer to use push-click fixings rather than handles for a more streamlined look. That's what the owners of this snazzy understairs set up went with, and it looks great I think: 

via Livingetc

If you or someone in your life is handy with a... um, whatever tool you would use to self-build understairs yokies, you'll find plans for them here and here.

I might just get in a carpenter, if I ever actually get round to doing this, because while Himself would of course be my first choice and has done woodwork, he is very busy. 

Oh, and of course he mostly hates home improvement projects.