Not sure what the reason is for closing off the stairs at all IMO this is a nice open stairway and no need for a door . If keeping a child out is the reasom the baby gate works and you will not need it forever You have a nice landing after the front door is closed for access to the stairs leave it alone or spand huge money to fix what IMO is not broken

I would not close it off. A creative/inviting paint job would do wonders.

Don't think of it as stairs to a basement, it's all part of your home.

Awesome - thank you both for the advice. I initially wanted to close it off because we don’t use it much but I like the idea of embracing it and saving $$$.

So maybe we:

• Update the stairs carpet
• scrape popcorn ceiling
• paint stair walls (and basement) white paint color throughout the house
• add better lighting
• paint or replace banister
• decor on the weird landing part - embracing the dust? Maybe a faux plant and a large mirror?
• what else?

It certainly not to code. Stepping on the side landing a little, losing your footing and tumbling down the stairs is an issue. Closing off the landing so that cannot happen is a good idea. Don't duplicate post. Sometimes it takes a while to get an answer.

My house has a door to the basement that opens to the steps, without a landing, and so do all the houses in this tract subdivision. We've lived here since 1987 and nobody has ever fallen down the stairs.

Our code (Ontario) says "Where a door at the top of a stair in a dwelling unit swings away from the stair, no landing is required between the doorway and the stair. "

Duplicate post was an accident as I got an alert that my post ‘couldn’t be posted’. Sorry for being annoying!!

It certainly is dangerous and not up to code. We live in the middle of nowhere where there are no codes in the country so we are working with what the previous owner did and trying to be budget friendly in the process. Thanks so much for taking the time to comment. 😃

I amended my post. It is code where I live, as long as the door doesn't swing over the stairs.

Awesome! Thank you!

Your entry floor serves as a landing for the basement steps. it really is no different than any bi-level or split-level entry. The only physical change i might consider is to extend that right side handrail and block off that ledge so no one can step onto it by accident.

Like Partim, our stairs have a door at the top that leads right to the first step. YOurs are just odd with the little side area. How about closing that area off or putting a little section of wall to close it off from the first floor? Built in cabinets or shelving along the stair way wall for seldom used items?

OP posted her pictures upside down. It is definitely not to code... my big foot would hit that side landing more than once.

Yes, we know it is not up to code. We live in the country where there is no code. We are just working with what we’ve got here.

I know you got it, Jennifer, but I don’t think some others reading this understood the situation.

You could create some extra built in storage on that ledge so you could not step onto it. You could create a bit of an archway or doorway there in general (with no door) to differtiate it a big and dress it up, and orient the opening toward where the stairs actually Are rather than also in front of that ledge.

If the OP builds a wall that has a door "only" in front of the stairs, i.e. the width of the stairs, there would be no way to step on that landing area, because there would be a wall there. And I'd put the railing on the right side too.

Thanks for posting the right-side up picture. I had no idea LOL.

Edited to add : Exactly as @palimpsest showed.

This is random but David Niven's (the actor) first wife died while playing "Sardines" a form of Hide and Seek played in the dark, because she ran through a door into what she thought was a room, but was at the top of the basement steps

Every basement I have owned has had stairs like those shown by @Partim. No landing and door swings away from stairs. Pretty much every house in the northeast is like this, unless it was designed as a grander staircase to a finished basement. Some older Cape style homes in New England had a door in front of the staircase leading to the second floor. No landings there either and the doors, of course, open away from the stairs.

Sure that "storage" area needs to be blocked off, but I don't see anything really weird or unique about those basement stairs.

Yeah, but what about Mr. Peepers that lives down there?

I was going to say that a door would require closing in that space, as there's no way to hang one with the high ceiling and so forth, but I see people have suggested how you could frame that out. I'd measure before doing that, though. I've renovated some houses in the Northeast like those being discussed, and sometimes they have such narrow staircases that replacing a basement appliance (like laundry machines) requires *taking them apart* -- I sure wouldn't narrow the access to a staircase if I could help it!

This was the entrance to house from garage of our home we built in 2005. The architect had a ledge drawn similar to yours, but when we sit him our list of changes, we had that rmoved because we had cats. We had arches in our house, and it looks like you do too. You could repeat the arch at the top of the stairs, would somewhat divide the area from the stairs. I ahd a dog gate made. Grandchildren came later.

Closed

It was made from old wood and copper pipe to repeat the copper elsewhere in side and outside of our house. It folded back against one wall.

Open

Our last house had a ledge going down to the basement, but the shelf was not very deep. I put my equestrian items there with a few other things. There was a wall at the top of the stairs, the staircase was basically in a walk-thru (small) pantry.

With regard to narrowing the access to the stairs, it's still going to be the stairs that are the limiting factor if they are narrower than the door opening, and this door could certainly be made a little wider than the stairs.