✨ Interior images are AI-generated. Items shown are similar to those in the video.

Natural Cálido

Under-stair nook with diagonally cut slats and a drawer bench

The slats on this wall run vertically and it's the staircase that cuts them, so each one measures something different from the last. It's the opposite solution to laying them along the slope, and it's considerably more work, but it leaves the void with the height it has rather than underlining what descends. Below the bench, three drawers make use of the one cubic metre that in an ordinary house always stays empty.

Bajo escaleraListones en diagonalCorte a ingleteBanco con cajonesLuz rasanteHornacinasPiedra en relieveFuente de paredRecibidorAlmacenaje

Design keys

Vertical slats cut to the stair's pitch, each a different length and all finishing on the same inclined plane.
A light strip at the foot of the slatting, throwing the beam up the face of the timber instead of down from the ceiling.
A run of bench with three drawers under the seat, using the depth of the void and not only its upper part.
A second strip under the bench base, lifting the volume off the polished floor.
A column of individually lit niches on the side wall, clear of the staircase diagonal.
A relief stone wall behind, washed from above so each piece casts its own shadow.

Furniture and decor in this design

Items shown are similar to those in the video, not necessarily identical.

Mitre box with a backsaw

A guide with angled slots and a stiff-bladed saw, which is what lets you cut slat by slat at the same angle throughout. For an under-stair panel choose the adjustable box rather than the three fixed positions, because a staircase pitch almost never lands on forty-five degrees. A backsaw cuts cleaner than an ordinary handsaw: the rigid spine stops the blade bowing and leaving the end out of true.

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Wall-style cascade fountain for indoors

A free-standing fountain with a small footprint, water sliding down an inclined face into a base filled with pebble. In a hallway it works because it occupies a corner rather than a route, but check the flow rate: the finer the film, the less noise, and in an enclosed space with a hard floor the sound bounces far more than in a courtyard. Expect to top it up often, because an open film evaporates considerably more than a spout.

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Recessed drawer pull

A routed finger pull or a piece recessed into the drawer front, leaving it flat with nothing projecting. Under a bench it's close to compulsory: a pull that stands proud digs into the calf of whoever sits down and catches clothing as you pass. The hardware-free alternative is push-to-open, which looks cleaner still but requires a gap between fronts and isn't ideal if the drawers will be heavily loaded.

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Relief stone wall panel

A panel with stone pieces projecting at varying depths, intended to take grazing light and give back shadow. Lighting is everything with this material: washed from above it reads fully, while under frontal light it flattens and looks like expensive wallpaper. Check the weight per square metre before buying, because natural stone needs mechanical fixing and only lightweight resin versions can go up on adhesive alone.

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Chamaedorea, low-light indoor palm

A palm with slender stems and an open habit, one of the few that gets on in a hallway or beside a staircase, where natural light is scarce and always indirect. It tolerates shade better than a kentia and stays smaller, so it fits a corner without encroaching on the route. It dislikes hard water: if brown tips appear and watering is correct, it's usually tap limescale, corrected by using water left to stand.

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How to get this look at home

Measure the stair's angle on site rather than taking it off the drawing. Between design and build there's usually a couple of degrees, and on a cut running three metres those two degrees become a visible wedge against the ceiling.
Cut the slats one at a time rather than the whole panel in one pass. Run a saw across an assembled panel and the blade enters and exits through the gaps between slats, jumping and chipping the edge on exactly the face that will be on show.
A diagonally cut edge exposes end grain and looks coarser than the face. Sand it with the grain and give it the same finish as the rest before fitting, because once the panel is up you can't get at it properly with paper.
The strip at the foot works if the slats have enough depth. With flat slats the light escapes forwards and dazzles anyone sitting down; with slats of three or four centimetres, each acts as a shield for the next and what you see is lit timber rather than the strip.
Leave room in front of the bench to open the drawers. A sixty-centimetre drawer needs sixty centimetres clear in front, and under a staircase that competes with circulation: if the void is on a route through, hinged doors are a better answer.

FAQ

How do you cut a slat panel on the diagonal?

Slat by slat, never the assembled panel in one pass. The reason is mechanical: on a panel the saw meets timber, then air, then timber again, and at each entry the blade jumps and tears splinters off the edge. What works is dismantling, or cutting before gluing, marking each piece with its measurement. The first step is taking the stair's real angle with a sliding bevel held against the sloping soffit rather than trusting the drawing, because between design and build there's always a difference. Then each slat is cut to that angle, the end grain sanded and the finish applied before fitting. It's slower than laying the slats along the slope, which is the alternative and needs no angled cut at all, but it leaves a wall that reads vertically and that stops the void looking so flattened.

Where does the seat go in an under-stair void?

At the tall end, and the sum is done from the seat rather than the floor. A seated person occupies some eighty or ninety centimetres above the seat, so with a bench at forty-five off the floor you need around a metre thirty of clear height to rest your back without catching your head. Measure where on the diagonal that height is reached and put the backrest there: everything below serves for storage, for plants, or for nothing at all, but not for sitting. One detail often missed: if the bench sits tight against the sloping face, the head ends up further forward than the back and you need a little more height than the calculation gives, which is why thick back cushions in these corners aren't purely decorative.

Are drawers under a stair bench worth building?

They're worth it if two things are resolved: the depth and the room to open them. Depth is the real problem, because a bench will take drawers of seventy or eighty centimetres and beyond sixty you need full-extension runners, or whatever goes at the back stops existing. With ordinary partial-extension runners the last third never comes out and fills with things nobody remembers. The second question is the clearance in front: you have to be able to step back the drawer's own depth to open it fully, and in a narrow hallway that isn't always there. Where there's no room, the alternative is hinging the seat and using the bench as a chest, which uses the same volume without asking for anything in front.

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Under-stair nook with diagonally cut slats and a drawer bench

Design keys

Furniture and decor in this design

How to get this look at home

FAQ

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