Henderson resident turns unused space into wine cellar

When Catherine Perez walked into her new Seven Hills home in Henderson this past November, she noticed that a very small closet adjacent to the stairs was cold and crammed with a lot of useless junk. Having traveled throughout Spain, she immediately envisioned this diamond in the rough to be a quaint Spanish bodega. More specifically, Perez thought the location, which was in the middle of the house and close to both the kitchen and dining room, would make an ideal wine cellar.

"I wanted to make a little cave that would funnel people in," Perez said. "I designed the walls to look like (inlaid) stones with a stone floor. … It only took three weeks to do. The bodega holds about 300 bottles of wine and guests love going into it to choose a bottle of wine for dinner."

When it comes to utilizing untapped space under your stairs, ideas are only limited by one's imagination, your budget and finding the right creative handyman or interior designer to help your concept take flight.

For seven years, chiropractor Sam Ho and his wife, Melissa, had thought about cutting into the drywall under the stairs adjacent to a small cubbyhole room near the rear of their Temecula, Calif., home. Earlier this summer, they finally hired a handyman to undertake the remodeling job and was immediately astounded at what they discovered.

"There was a lot of scrap insulation that had been thrown in there on the floor and there was an exhaust pipe drooping down," Ho said. "The handyman cleaned up all the loose insulation, removed 2-by-4 bracing and built new headers to reinforce the stairs. He installed drywalls and wired the room with two electric lights and an electrical outlet. Then he laid down hardwood flooring."

Additionally, a door was installed and a ceiling hung. The nicely finished 75-square-foot storage room with textured walls and ceiling measures approximately 7 feet high, 5 feet wide and 15 feet long.

"It took only seven days to complete and only cost $1,900," Ho said. "It was a great thing to do and is a huge added benefit to the house. Before, this was just unused dead space."

Julie Gerstein, style editor of the social news and entertainment company BuzzFeed, recently posted "27 Genius Ways to Use the Space Under Your Stairs" that included such ideas as creating a hidden coat closet, stacked shelving or a credenza, a special seating area for reading and even a secret bathroom.