7 Creative Ways to Utilize the Space Under Your Staircase

Additional Space Saving Ideas

Photo by Pixabay

When we're doing a re-design or trying to figure out how to add another useable space to our home, rarely do we think to use the open space under our staircase.

So long as there's a floor and wall area under your stairs and you're willing to tackle a re-do, you're only limited by your imagination.

Let's Review Seven Creative Ways to Use Your Staircase Space:

1.  A Pantry - What a Cool Idea

If you've always wanted a kitchen pantry but lacked the space to put one in, your staircase (upper or lower) can serve as the perfect place to store your kitchen goods. Be sure to scroll through the Pinterest board below to check out exactly what it could look like. Have the exterior match your walls, include a door, lighting and put multiple shelves around the space. Include a rolling tray for portability.

2. An Indoor Dog House - Check out the Gorgeous Design Ideas Below

Cut-out a doggy door to create a full fun dog house under the stairs. Finish the space off any way your heart desires. Add a large soft comfy bed for your fur baby, add lighting and decorate the outside wall with your doggy's name and other personal doggie decorating details. Leave it open for Fido or add a mini-doggie-barn-door as featured in one of the doggie stair case rooms below!

3. An Extra Sleeping Area - When Space is at a Max, Make more Space

When guests come to visit, a sleeping station under the staircase can serve as an alternative area for the kids to use when their room is being used by company. The kids will love to cozy-up in the cubbie under the stairs. Add lighting, book shelves, leave it open to the room or add a barn door to close the space off. Be sure to check out the artistic examples featured below in the Pinterest Board.

4. A Desk Working Area or Homework Station - Perfect for Under Lower Level Staircases

Of course you can create a desk station under an upstairs staircase as well. Depending upon the space you're working with, add a smaller desk with shelves above and below, or add a wrap around desk that includes a few chairs so that more than one person can use the space at the same time. Below you'll see several desk-stair design ideas.

5.  A Washroom - When Space is a Premium

When you need an extra washroom but have no idea how to fit it into your limited space, then be sure to assess whether it can be added under the stairs. Assuming plumbing isn't an issue, add a toilet, sink, flooring, trim, a door and décor and you now have another washroom. You'll see an example of washrooms under staircases below as well.

6. A Reading Nook - A Place to Quietly Read and Write

Include a comfy built-in couch with soft cushions, a throw blanket, shelves stacked with your favorite books, adjustable lighting and you're all set! You'll see several examples of just how cozy these areas can be featured in the Pinterest Board below.

7. Storage - There are Many Design Ideas for Extra Storage

Below you'll notice a number of different storage ideas for under the stairs. You can build just shelves, partial shelve or both shelves and drawers. You can finish the look with elegant trim, add doors, or make the storage drawers and shelves pull out for easier access.

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Review of Our Favorite Seafood Dip ~ with Recipe

Homemade Clam Dip & Chips

Family Game Night Snacks (c) Elf

The gathering of family and friends over holidays, for special events and celebrations, or for card & game nights, calls for finger food type snacks. 

The quickest and most popular of these type of snacks are what we all like to refer to as 'chips & dip'.

Many years ago our grocery store carried, along with your typical onion dip and guacamole dip, a creamy cream cheese type dip with clams. The seafood lovers in my family absolutely loved it. Somewhere along the line the store-bought clam dip disappeared from the dairy section, probably due to lack of popularity as not everyone likes clams. (Can't imagine that, but it's true!). :-)

We really missed not being able to buy clam dip any more, so I got to pondering on it and figured out it couldn't be that hard to come up with my own version. Using some suggestions from an appetizer cook book for seafood-type dips, this 'homemade clam dip' is what I 'invented'. My family and friends liked it so much that it has become the 'expected' snack item at our house for any time we get together. It's best served with ripple-style chips and/or pretzels because it is a bit 'stiffer' than some dips and the regular chips break apart too easily while 'dipping'.

My son recently called me long distance because he couldn't find his copy of my recipe and needed a review of the ingredients for the batch he was making. Others have asked for the recipe too, so I decided to share it here. Hope you enjoy it at your next gathering.

RECIPE For Clam Dip

Ingredients

Ingredients

• 1 (or 2) 8-ounce package Cream cheese, softened
• 8 ounce tub Sour cream, Use 'light' version, if desired
• 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 teaspoon Lemon Juice, bottled or Fresh
• 3 or 4 Scallions or Green Onions, chopped
• Dash Pepper
• 1 or 2 cans Canned Clams, drained
• Large Bag Ripple-style Potato Chips and/or Pretzels

Instructions

1. Place opened package of cream cheese in a medium bowl to soften.
2. Finely chop 3 or 4 fresh scallions (or green onions). Amount depends on your personal preference.
3. When cream cheese is soft enough to work with, add the chopped green onions, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice and pepper. Stir to mix.
4. Add the sour cream a few spoonfuls at a time, stirring into the cream cheese mixture.
5. Continue adding sour cream until the dip is the consistency you prefer. Some like it stiffer, somewhat like a spread you could serve on crackers; others like it soft enough to use with chips and pretzels.
6. When the dip is mixed to the consistency you like, add the clams (drained, but allow a tiny bit of clam juice to remain for a nice extra flavor).
7. Cover and refrigerate for several hours or overnight to allow the flavors to nicely blend. Stir once again before serving with the chips and/or pretzels.

+Cook's Note: I often double the recipe, depending upon the size of the group I am serving it to, as you will find it gets eaten quickly! :)

*Extra Note: We like lots of clams in our dip, so I prepare it with two cans, but one can works just as well.

Cook Time

Prep time: 30 min

Ready in: 30 min

Yield: Serves 4-6 people

Clam Dip ready to eat and enjoy!

Cream cheese dips, clam and otherwise, are my favorite kinds of dip.

I made a batch of my clam dip for a recent visit from my son & family. It's our favorite snack and is always expected.

Chips and Other Dips!

Source: Pixabay

If clams are not your favorite, there are lots of other kinds of dips from spinach and guacamole to onion dip to salsas. Any dip and combination of chips (potato, tortilla, pretzels) make great finger food snacks for any kind of party or get-together.

Dip Cookbook

Dips: Dip cookbook for dip recipes from easy dips to party dips

Dips is a dip cookbook with more than 40 recipes ranging from quick & easy dips to fancy party dips.  A cookbook filled with dip recipes for any party or occasion.

Are you a fan of 'chips & dips?'  What is your favorite kind of dip? 


For a variety of other kinds of appetizers, check out these fabulous appetizer reviews compiled for your snacking pleasure here on

ReviewThisReviews/Appetizers

National Chip and Dip Day is

March 23

Originally written © 2013 Wednesday-Elf.  Updated for Review This! on 3/23/2025

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Thirteen (2016 TV Mini-Series) Reviewed

This is one of the best mistakes I have ever made!  

I was searching Amazon Prime Video for a show I could watch while working on mundane site code.  I quickly clicked on the second season of a different tv series and the show started.  Not realizing I had inadvertently started a new miniseries, I keep thinking, who are these people?  But, soon it didn't matter because I was totally hooked on Thirteen.  

Thirteen would not have been a series I would have selected intentionally.  Child abduction is a subject I try to completely avoid on tv, in movies, or even in books.  It is a parent's worst nightmare and even though my own children are grown, not knowing where my child is, not hearing their voice on a regular basis, or not knowing they are safe, still sends me into panic mode.  

I said all of that because I want you to know that in spite of my own worst fears and horrors, Thirteen in one of the most riveting miniseries I have ever watched and I highly recommend it.

How "Thirteen" Begins

 Episode 1 of ThirteenThe miniseries begins with a young woman, 26 years old, running from a house, finding a pay phone and calling the police.  She claims to be Ivy Moxam, an abduction victim who hasn't been seen in 13 years.  The police are skeptical because over the years two others have claimed to be Ivy.  However, after DNA tests, it is confirmed that this woman is in fact the girl who was kidnapped when she was 13.  

It is immediately clear that Ivy is overwhelmed, insecure, scared, resistant to talk, and easily confused by too many people with too many questions.  This is understandable because she had been chained in a cellar for 13 years without any communication with the outside world.  Plus, her formal education had ended.  In many ways, she was still 13 years old.  

Her stress and anxiety are only heightened when the police find the house where she was held all those years.  Because her clothes are found in her abductors' bedroom, the police don't know what to believe.  They question the validity of her story and press her for answers she can't give.  After all, the kidnapper is still at large and the police would really like to arrest him.

In the first episode of the series, we discover that several people's lives suffered collateral damage.  Her parents are separated, her father has a mistress, her best friend, Eloise, left town, and her boyfriend, Tim, has married, but is still haunted by the past.  

The family strives for normalcy in order to give Ivy a secure, familiar home.  They are elated to have Ivy back home, but it is a time of readjustment for all.  Her father moves back in, hiding his secret from Ivy.  Her mother hurries to put things in the house back the way it was 13 years ago.  Ivy's sister was initially skeptical, but once the DNA test confirm her identity, she wants to help her sister.  She puts Ivy's needs above everything else, including her fiance.  

In an effort to reclaim her life, Ivy contacts her old boyfriend and invites him over.  He doesn't have the heart to tell her he is married now.  His own confusion is clear as he struggles to choose between the past and his present.   Neither Tim, nor her family, want to do or say the wrong thing.  They simply want to protect her.

Ivy has only been home for a few days.  She is struggling to find her place, remember who she is or is supposed to be, reestablish relationships and survive the constant pressure from the police to help them capture Leonard, aka Mark White, her kidnapper.  That pressure intensifies exponentially when Mark abducts a 10 year old.

My Opinion and Recommendation of "Thirteen"  

As I said in the the introduction, in only a few scenes, I was completely hooked on Thirteen.  Instead of having a tv show as background noise while I worked, I ended up setting aside my work and watching the miniseries.  I did not break between episodes.  I was so ingrained in the plot, that I watched all five episodes (5 hours) that night.  

The girl who played the part of Ivy did such an extraordinary job that I found myself siding with her completely.  Her facial expressions alone conveyed a world of anguish and uncertainty.  I could easily believe she was Ivy Moxam, a child who had been abducted, mentally and physically abused for 13 years.

This miniseries does an excellent job of showing how people can be trapped in the past, yet somehow manage to live on.  How so many things change because we can't just stop the progression of time, but how we can instantly be thrown back into time by simply having someone from our past return to us. 

From the very beginning, I was on Ivy's side.  I believed her and I believed in her strength of survival.  I was not disappointed in her final actions at the end of the 5th episode.  I believe you will definitely want to see this miniseries for yourself.

 Thirteen - Complete Mini-Series
on DVDCheck Price Episode 1 of Thirteen - Amazon Prime Video
Free with Prime MembershipCheck Price

 

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Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale Book Review

A friend told me that Kristin Hannah’s novel The Nightingale was an excellent book and it was. Though I know this book is a work of fiction, it does deal with real situations that happened during the time period that France was occupied by Germany in World War II.

I know things that happen in this book happened to real people in France. I have always read books set in this time period. However, what happened in that war is still hard to believe. Truly unbelievable. Despite knowing that people were treated in this manner, I still managed to come away in disbelief saying to my husband things like, "How could anyone treat people the way they did?" and "How did the French people manage to survive in those conditions?" We are not talking about one or two crazy people here, right? We are talking about an 'army' of people mistreating people.

Anyway, in my opinion, Kristin Hannah has crafted a wrenching story with a family and with characters that you will come to love. Yes, you are likely going to shed some tears. Yes, you will be upset by the violence and the cruelty and the sexual situations in this book though I must say that it is far from the worst book that I have read in those matters though perhaps more disturbing because it feels so real.

The Nightingale deals with the contributions made to World War II by women. Unfortunately, those important contributions like the women depicted in this book who joined the French Resistance or who managed despite incredible odds to feed their families, have not been as widely acknowledged or recognised as those of men.

In particular, this book deals with two quite different sisters: One who wants to keep her family safe; the other who is not willing to accept the things that are happening to them. It is a story of courage and survival parts of which were inspired by real women like 19-year old Belgian, Andrée De Jongh, who took considerable risks helping people escape from France.

Here is the book trailer. I do not know if it is official or not but it does give a good idea of the things that happen in this story:

This book is well done and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED by me and by many others. If you love a book that shares a great story about women’s lives and that is historically based you will enjoy The Nightingale. It is riveting. You will not even notice that it the hardcover book is 440 pages or that the paperback is 600, particularly if you read it as an ebook.

By way of further recommendation, you might take the fact that, according to The New York Times in 2016, this book had sold more than two million copies. This book has drawn both men and women as well as young and old readers. As one who has always been captivated by World War II novels it comes as no surprise to me when the Times stated that people are drawn to them. However, I was interested to learn that this book has drawn a younger generation of readers who perhaps relate to this novel because of how young people were drawn to the French Resistance.

If you are interested in reading The Nightingale, you can find it in all formats including eBook, audiobook and traditional paper book, on Amazon by clicking right here.  I’ve just noticed on the cover that this movie is to become a major motion picture. There is not much information available as I write this other than a rumoured movie release date of 2017, which means that once you have read the book you have a movie to look forward to.

If you like historical fiction, you might also enjoy these reviews on Review This:

Secret Healer by Ellin Carsta, which is set in 14th Century Germany.

The movie The Bridge of Spies, which is set in the cold war.

The One Man by Andrew Gross, which is set in Poland in 1944.

See you
At the book store!
Brenda

Quick Link:

Order your copy of Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale from Amazon.

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Skeletons in the Closet, Life is Unfair

My Secret Sister: Jenny Lucas and Helen Edwards' Family Story
It seems to me that many people use the quote "Life is Unfair" in a very flippant way! Usually when they don't get their own way about things. In the True Life story titled My Secret Sister, this quote really means what it says. I'd like to share this book with you and some thoughts of mine along the way, come along on my Review of My Secret Sister.

Jenny and Helen

Let's be clear, this is an autobiography of two women, who only recently became aware of each other. Their stories are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Jenny Lee Smith and Helen Edwards only found out about each other recently. Through lots of lies, half-truths, and wanton disregard for their feelings, these two sisters are finally putting all of the questions about themselves and each other to rest. They are busy making up for 44 years of searching that finally brought them together.

Background

Jenny:

Jenny Lucas had a charmed life. Oh she wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but her parents doted on her and she was the center of their universe.  The only child in a family where mom and dad were on the "older" side, she was the apple of their eye.  When her father took up golfing, he brought his daughter along and taught her how to golf too.  He even made her the very first golf clubs she used because she was only a little more than a toddler. Golf became her driving ambition. She was such a natural with the clubs and it gave her precious time with her father, whom she adored. When her father died, she really felt lost.  Cleaning up after his death, Jenny comes across a birth certificate.  It's the first inkling that she has about the possibility that she is not who she thought she was.  Not wanting to hurt her mother, she files this information away.  

Helen: 
Helen on the other hand was abused physically, mentally and emotionally most of her life. Her mother and father were either hateful, selfish and self centered at any given time. If any of those two characteristics came together at once, Helen paid the ultimate price for their mental state. Always told she was at fault for any and every turn of bad luck, she quickly learned to steer clear of her parents or do their bidding, whatever that may have entailed. Beatings at the hand of her father were not uncommon and her mother would just watch in a state of indifference, lest she also become a target of his rage.  Helen has an older half-brother who doesn't live at home anymore, but comes around trying his best to save Helen from his step father's wrath.  He is her "knight in shining armor." 

For years these two girls each wanted a sister, a confidant, to share their stories, troubles and tribulations with. Each in their own way was longing for some sense of belonging that wasn't being fulfilled in their own lives.  It would be years though before they would find each other.
I don't want to give away too much of the story, but want to encourage you to read it. 

There is nothing like having a sister in your life.

Insights from my perspective:

If you know of anyone who is adopted, or if you are part of a circle of "Family Secrets", I want you to understand that those secrets can be very destructive and divisive.  They hurt people who are looking for answers.  If someone in your family comes to you with questions and they are old enough to know the answers, I would encourage you to talk to the parents, but if they are no longer alive, then tell them the truth.  Don't sugar coat the truth, don't make excuses, don't embellish the story, just tell them what you know to be truth.  

I am so grateful for the opening up of adoption records, so that children who want to know about their birth parents have that opportunity.   It doesn't mean that everything will be rosy and perfect, there is no such state in life, but it gives the person seeking answers, a hope that could fill in a lot of blanks.

From my own experience, I have an adopted grandson and I'm so thrilled that he is in our lives. He came to us at 2 days old.  He knows he's adopted and he also knows that we love him dearly. When and if he wants to know more he will be told the truth by his parents (my daughter and son-in-law).

 I also have a niece that was given up for adoption 40 plus years ago.  We (our whole extended family) became reunited 3 years ago.  It was a most joyous celebration of lost family, found. She was able to express to her birth mother that she was happy, and the birth mother had a hole in her heart filled. We have her in our lives again and it's wonderful. 

Unwanted pregnancies are as old as time itself.  It is high time that we take the stigma off of being born "out of wedlock" or "not wanted" and realize that when children are given up for adoption, the mother and/or father are trying to make the best decisions for their child.  They should be applauded for understanding that they may not be equipped to be the best parents, but they should also be ready to possibly meet that child again when they are all grown up.

My Secret Sister was not an easy book to read, maybe because of our family dynamic.  In the end, there is still longing and heartbreak, but there is also hope and joy.  It was a very interesting and enlightening book!

Picture from Pixabay.com

Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article. “As an Amazon Associate, Ebay (EPN), Esty (Awin), and/or Zazzle Affiliate, I (we) earn from qualifying purchases.”

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