Moving the stairs around?

[newusername2]

I have maybe seen too many your home made perfect so maybe thinking too out of the box but I was wondering if it would make sense to move the stairs around. Standard 3 bed terraced house where you open the door and the stairs are immediately to the right. Small hallway area.

Would it not be better to turn them round so that they start further down the corridor and go up towards the front of the house so to speak? That would give more space for a proper hallway, space for a built in cupboard under the stairs for stuff and also you wouldn't get your socks dirty everytime you have to pass the 'hallway' to go upstairs (lots of muddy boots etc).

Since 'all' houses are built with the stairs like that I must be missing something, but what?

(Will be doing more building works so would add costs but perhaps not unobtainable.)

Surely you could put a built in cupboard under the current stairs?

Yes, but it would be further in, so not immediately accessible from the hallway area!

It would mean your stairs also arriving on the first floor in a different place. You'd have to start the stairs far enough back that you don't encroach on the (I assume) small front bedroom over the front door.

Ah of course - I can see that would normally be the case :-/ It would work here - quite a big landing :-) Thank you for enlightening me!

I think safety comes into it too. Escaping a fire in the dark in the middle of the night? Straight down the stairs and you're out.

It seems quite expensive to move the stairs, could you get one of those fancy drawer systems to make the most of the space you do have? I know you are not so keen on the understairs cupboard in the current set up. Or could you build a porch to sort of extend the hall out that way?

Thank you so much for your suggestions! I really wonder if it's a security thing, there are loads of setups with stairs in the lounge, far from the front door etc..!?

Not possible to extend out unfortunately... That would have been great. I just want a hallway where there's space for muddy boots and you don't get wet feet when you're inside and want to go upstairs/downstairs!

The small upstairs room is actually not that small... I was thinking of if it would be possible to turn the last few steps 90 degrees so that the stairs are not straight any more.

Understairs drawers are a possiblity, but you'd then need to walk in a few steps - ie the floor would get wet/dirty unless you take them off again, I inevitably need to go in several times to get forgotten hats/mittens/etc etc...

There are some building regs it would need to comply with which may or may not affect it. We did a 90 degree turn towards the top but there is a minimum ceiling height related to the width of the stairs it must meet. Our builder had to check the calcs with Building Control.

Our landing wasn't big enough so we took out the box room in the end to accommodate it.

Stair removal and replacement and making good walls and floors etc was about £9k in the end. It would be cheaper to get a decent cupboard under your existing stairs!

I've done this twice in two different houses for exactly the reasons you state - and it gave the much needed elbow room when you came in the door - also the added bonus of walking down stairs straight into kitchen in the morning. Wasnt aware of any building regs and nothing came up when houses were sold.

Inserting the new staircase was easy (made off site) and both staircases replaced were those '70s without risers type - not sure how easy it would have been to rip out a staircase that had been built into the house for over 100 years.

Thank you so much both of you for sharing your experiences :-) Super useful. I hadn't thought about the walking straight into the kitchen but that definitely appeals too! It would be nice not to have to walk towards the front door every time you go up/down.