Love those little stair ways from kitchen up to a small bedroom. I've seen them in a few very old houses. The ones I've seen are much more narrow. I would imagine kids really like them. One of the ones I'd seem the small room was turned into a kids play/ hangout room.

Hey great work! Your butler stairs look like a mirror of mine. The walls and ceiling in mine are fine, but the stairs are very scuffed up and need some serious refinishing. And I need lighting!

Good luck getting the stairs in a fully usable state again - you will LOVE them. We recently bought our house, a pretty much unadulterated Victorian with original layout, and my husband and dad were initially all into tearing the butler stairs out to have more space for the kitchen and bathroom, but then we moved in and starting living in the house, and it turns out we use the butler stairs WAY more frequently than the grand main stairs.

Thank you queenvictorian. I agree about keeping the stairs. I could see how some would want to tare them out, there’s not much to use them for than walking up and down the stairs. But, it’s amazing how much those stairs come in handy. It’s so much faster to get upstairs from the kitchen.

I adore back stairs. My grandparents had them and they make games of hide and go seek so much more fun! Backstairs are so cool and I'm glad you are rehabbing yours.

Our current home used to have them but by the time we bought it, they had been closed off half way up. You's round the bend of the pie shaped steps and then they stopped. Depressing. We removed them entirely and now have our fridge in that space, which allowed us to reconfigure out kitchen and add a powder room. Too bad the house doesn't have room for both.

Has anyone had any experience of using the butler stairs to make pantry storage? Moving into an old house with a small kitchen for our big family and would like to convert the stairs into some sort of usable storage space, which will probably mean partially blocking it off...

My childhood house had the servant stairs with built in shelving along the entire wall. I wish I had a photo of them! It was the only pantry in the kitchen.

We loved the stairs as kids but inevitably someone would be running in socks and slip down the stairs, dragging a package of spaghetti or something along with you as you fell 🤣🤣

I would image you can remove the stairs and make the space a walk in pantry...

I love that! We can't make it into a walk into pantry entirely because the first two steps can't be removed because they form part of the head space that you need going down the steps to the basement on the other side. I could put shelves up one wall but it's too narrow to do both. Still feel more inclined to block it off tho.. not sure i want 8 unruly kids dragging all the jars and packets with them!

Lol I don’t blame you! My mom’s were only on one side and we got used to them being there. The house was built in 1929 and had so many cool features 😊