Stair Landing Storage: Benches, Cabinets and Riser Drawers

by | Nov 11, 2026 | Home Renovation

The best stair landing storage is a built-in bench with lift-up seats or drawers, a shallow cabinet or bookshelf on the wall above it, and, where the stair framing allows, drawers in the risers or beneath the flight. Each of these works only if the landing stays clear to walk and the stairs keep their legal dimensions. This guide covers what to build, what to store where, which numbers to check first and when to hand the job to a carpenter.

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TL;DR

  • A fitted bench with hinged seats or drawers is the most useful landing piece, because it combines seating, storage and a place to set things down.
  • Riser drawers and under-stair drawers suit small, light items such as shoes, gloves, reusable bags and pet gear.
  • Never trade stair safety for storage: keep riser height, tread depth, headroom and landing size intact, and leave structural members alone.
  • Wall-mounted shelves and shallow cabinets add capacity without eating into the walking path.
  • Local code varies, so confirm your plan with your building department before cutting into any stair.

Table of Contents

What a landing can hold

A landing is a flat, awkward, often wasted piece of floor. That is exactly why it rewards custom work. Off-the-shelf furniture rarely fits the width, and the stairs on one side and a wall on the other leave odd gaps that a carpenter can fill to the quarter inch.

A Domino feature on an awkward landing shows how far one corner can go. The designer built a wall-to-wall bench with lift-up sections and drawers for puzzles, games and hairbrushes, added inset charging stations, and ran a wraparound bookshelf above it. The lesson is not the specific style. It is that seating, storage, charging and reading can share one carefully fitted piece.

Three layouts cover most homes:

  1. A straight landing between two flights. Usually the best candidate for a bench or a shallow wall cabinet.
  2. A turning landing in an L or U stair. The space beneath is often the larger opportunity, with drawers or a door-fronted cabinet reached from the side.
  3. A small top or bottom landing. Best served by wall-mounted shelves, hooks and a slim cabinet rather than anything on the floor.

Landing storage bench: the workhorse

A bench does three jobs at once. You sit to put on shoes, you drop a bag or mail on top, and you store things inside. A built-in version can span the full width of the landing, with a seat that lifts or with drawers in the base.

Lift-up seat or drawers?

Lift-up seats give the deepest, most open storage. They suit bulky seasonal items such as blankets, board games and holiday decorations. The tradeoff is that you must clear the seat to reach what is underneath.

Drawers cost more in hardware and labor but make everything reachable. They suit things you use weekly. Full-extension runners matter here, because a deep drawer on weak slides sags quickly. If you are choosing between the two, a common split is lift-up lids at the ends and drawers in the middle.

Our built-in bench storage checklist walks through seat height, depth, hinge type and drawer hardware. For the broader case for fitted seating, see why built-in benches maximize entryways.

Keeping the landing walkable

A bench must never narrow the route people use to move between flights. The Carmel, California stair guide, based on the 2016 residential code, says a landing cannot be narrower than the stairway it serves, and that a landing on a straight run need not be deeper than 36 inches. In practice, that gives you a working rule: measure the clear walking path first, then fit furniture into whatever is left.

Some practical ways to protect circulation:

  • Keep the bench along the wall that is not the path of travel, and keep it shallow, often 12 to 16 inches deep on a tight landing.
  • Choose rounded or eased front edges so nobody catches a hip or a hand.
  • Mount a bookshelf or cabinet above at head height or higher, so it does not project into the walking space.
  • Use drawers that pull toward the open side only if the landing is deep enough to open them fully. Otherwise choose lift-up seats.
  • Do not place a bench where it blocks the swing of a door.

These are layout guidelines from carpentry practice, not code requirements. The code points that do apply are in the safety section below.

Landing cabinet ideas

When floor space is tight, go vertical. A cabinet on the landing wall can hold what a bench cannot: cleaning supplies, extra towels, books, a first aid kit, or the things a guest bath runs out of.

  • Shallow wall cabinet. Eight to ten inches deep is often enough for books, small baskets and linens, and it stays out of the walking path.
  • Closed cabinet over a bench. Doors hide visual clutter, and a bench below keeps the seat useful.
  • Open shelves. The Spruce points to open shelves for books, baskets for clutter and a bench with cubbies beneath, all depending on the staircase.
  • Built-ins that follow the stair line. The same piece notes that built-ins can follow the angle of the stair, with closets for bulkier items or pull-out drawers with built-in lighting for deeper drawers.
  • A recessed niche. Bob Vila suggests a recessed closet under a stair or inside a stud wall to add storage while keeping its footprint small. Whether a wall can be opened depends on what is inside it, so have it checked first.

If your look is traditional, pick painted or stained hardwood with a simple face frame. For a modern look, flat slab fronts with push latches keep lines quiet. Architectural Digest offers one striking example: an under-stair setup inspired by a modern take on a Japanese tansu chest, in rich walnut with burnt orange accents against soft white. Matching the wood to your trim and flooring matters more than any trend.

For design ideas that carry across the rest of the house, these practical home decor ideas are a good place to browse.

Stair riser drawers and under-stair storage

Riser drawers turn the vertical face of a step into a shallow pull-out. Done well, they hold more than you would expect. Done badly, they create a trip hazard.

Flush drawer fronts fitted into stair risers

What fits

Riser drawers suit lightweight, compact items. One home improvement guide lists shoes, gloves, pet accessories, reusable bags, children’s items and lightweight tools. Heavy tools, paint cans and anything you would be reluctant to drop on your foot belong somewhere else, such as a deep drawer in the space beneath the stairs.

For the larger volume under a flight, deeper drawers on full-extension runners or a hidden closet work better than riser fronts. A project in Mississippi shows the idea: homeowners used horizontal drawers under their stairs for athletic equipment and household linens, in a trapezoidal cabinet built by a cabinet carpenter. We cover that approach in more depth in our guide to turning under-stairs space into real storage.

Where drawers should open

Side-access drawers are often easier to use because they do not open into the stair route. Any front that sits in a riser face should close flush and have a positive latch, so it cannot slide open when someone steps nearby. A guide to pull-out risers makes both points, and adds that a flush look does not prove a design is safe or code-compliant.

Before you cut: safety and code

This is the part that decides whether a project is a good idea. Stairs are among the most regulated parts of a house for good reason.

Do not weaken the structure. Stringers and other framing must stay as they are unless a qualified professional confirms a change is safe. Electrical wiring, heating components or plumbing may also run under or beside stairs, according to the riser storage guide. Open a small inspection area before you plan.

Keep the stair geometry. Under the 2021 International Residential Code as summarized by the pull-out riser guide, risers run from 4 to 7-3/4 inches high and treads need at least 10 inches of depth, with no more than 3/8 inch variation inside a flight. A movable drawer front must not replace a structural riser or leave an open gap where a fixed one belongs. The same guide notes that headroom must stay at 6 feet 8 inches and that a storage project cannot reduce it.

Stair riser, tread, headroom and width measurements

Respect landing and stair width. The Carmel guide lists a 36-inch minimum residential stair width, 80-inch headroom, artificial lighting on interior stairs and landings at top and bottom, subject to exceptions. Minnesota’s rules give similar numbers for dwellings: at least 36 inches clear and 6 feet 8 inches of headroom, measured from the stair or landing surface. Illinois is covered by local codes that vary by municipality, so ask your village or city building department which edition applies.

Protect the enclosed space. Under the 2015 IRC, an enclosed accessible space under stairs needs walls, surfaces and soffits protected with at least 1/2-inch gypsum board on the enclosed side. A new cabinet or closet under a flight may trigger this, so plan for it.

Keep treads strong. Stair treads must carry a 300-pound concentrated load on a 2-inch by 2-inch area under the 2021 IRC, as adopted in Washington State. Cutting into a tread or its support can compromise that, which is another reason to leave the tread and stringer alone.

A quick pre-build checklist

  1. Measure the landing width, depth and the clear walking path.
  2. Measure headroom from the landing surface to the lowest point above.
  3. Confirm what runs inside the wall or under the flight.
  4. Keep every riser and tread to its original dimension.
  5. Add lighting, such as a small LED strip or sconce, so the landing stays visible at night.
  6. Call your local building department about permits.

Lower-cost ways to add storage

Not every landing needs full cabinetry. Some low-effort options work well for light, daily-use items.

  • Pegboard and dowels. A Domino under-stairs mudroom used paint, plywood pegboard, wooden dowels and movable shelves. Open storage lets you see and grab essentials at once.
  • Crates on casters. The same project used plastic crates on casters for seasonal items under low ceilings.
  • Hooks and rails. Rails on the landing wall keep bags, coats and dog leashes off the floor.
  • Baskets under a bench. If you already have a plain bench, baskets give you quick, soft-edged storage.

These are the right choice for rentals or for testing how you really use the space. When you want furniture that fits to the inch and lasts, built-in work is where the money pays back. Mudroom-style ideas that carry over are in our mudroom organization carpentry guide and small mudroom design layouts.

Choosing materials and finishes

Landing pieces take daily knocks from shoes, bags and kids. Hardwood or good plywood boxes with solid wood face frames hold up better than particleboard, especially for drawer boxes. Paint the cabinet in a satin or semi-gloss finish for easy wiping, or stain the wood to match the stair rail. Match your hardware to existing door and cabinet pulls so the piece looks original to the house. For older homes, matching trim profiles and wall thickness is the difference between a built-in that looks installed in 1925 and one that looks added last week.

Perspective: why we build these on site

We rarely meet a landing that matches a catalog dimension. Walls are out of plumb, stair stringers rise at their own angle, and trim from decades ago has its own profile. That is why we build landing benches and cabinets on site, scribed to the wall and fitted to the stair.

Our team brings over 100 years of combined carpentry experience to these small, tricky spaces. We start with a design consultation: how you use the landing, what needs to live there, and how much walking room the household needs. Then we shape the storage to that, using solid materials and drawers designed for daily use.

We also treat the stair as something to protect. A good storage project leaves the structure, the riser heights and the headroom as they were, and it adds capacity around them. Handled that way, a quiet landing can become the most used spot in the house.

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Plan your landing with Wood Made Illinois

We design and install custom built-ins, mudroom organization and creative carpentry for homes and small businesses across Central Illinois. If your landing, stair wall or under-stair space needs a bench, a cabinet or drawers that fit, we begin with a design consultation and build to your measurements.

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See our built-in and carpentry services on the Wood Made Illinois site and request a consultation for your staircase.

FAQ

How big does a stair landing need to be?

Under the residential code summarized by Carmel’s stair guide, a landing cannot be narrower than the stairway it serves, and on a straight run it need not be deeper than 36 inches. Local rules differ, so confirm with your building department before adding furniture.

What can I store in stair riser drawers?

Keep riser drawers for light, compact items: shoes, gloves, pet accessories, reusable bags and children’s items, as this riser storage guide lists. Put heavier things in deeper drawers beneath the flight or in a closet.

Can a landing bench block the stairs?

It can if it is too deep or sits in the path of travel. Keep the clear walking width at least equal to the stairway, and choose lift-up seats if the landing is too tight for drawers to open fully.

Do I need a permit to add storage under the stairs?

That depends on your municipality and how much you change. Enclosing the space under stairs can trigger fire protection rules such as 1/2-inch gypsum board under the 2015 IRC, so call your local building department before you start.

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