Innovative Ideas for Integrating a Staircase into Your Kitchen

With the increase of modern developments and open plan designs, homes no longer feature the traditional hallway complete with staircase as standard. Instead, staircases can be positioned anywhere on the ground floor to allow access to the first floor, and more often than not, they are created to be a design feature in their own right. This style gallery  looks at some beautiful and imaginative ways in which staircases can be integrated into a kitchen, whist remaining functional and practical in design.

• Integrated Staircases
• Spiral Staircases
• Open Plan Living
• Working with Small and Unusual Spaces
• Using a staircase as a room divider

Integrated Staircases

Rather than boxing off the staircase and hiding it from view, architects are choosing not only to use the staircase as a design point, they are also putting the space beneath the stairs to good use. Integrating kitchen appliances into the overall build of the stairs is a great way of maximising space, and creating a striking design feature which can be extremely effective, no matter how much space you may have to play with.

Spiral Staircases

Spiral staircases can create a stunning effect in a kitchen, as they generally are quite open and don’t block out too much light. Iron or steel spiral staircases can work well at coordinating with a more industrial kitchen design, however a light wooden structures can bring to life a more organic theme. In some cases, spiral staircases can be a good space saving solution, especially when a near vertical rise is required to suit the upstairs floor plan, however they can take up a considerable amount of floor space on the ground floor so this will need careful consideration when planning your kitchen layout. 

Open plan living

The trend for open plan living offers up many design opportunities for smaller kitchens. Creating a free flow space by removing internal walls and treating the staircase as a design element rather than simply a functional part of the home can transform a property. Letting in more light creates the illusion of extra space and literally opens up the kitchen.

Working with small and unusual spaces

Integrating a staircase into a very small kitchen or into an unusual shaped area of the room can be a challenge, but it is not impossible. Due to the very nature of staircases, as long as there is sufficient headroom staircases can be twisted and turned to fit the most surprising spaces.

Using a staircase as a kitchen/living room divider

In open plan homes, it is easy for a space to become quite bland and characterless without any distinct areas of ‘light and shade’. To avoid this happening and to make it easier to introduce different styles and colour schemes it makes sense to differentiate between different areas of the space, for example cooking and lounging. Freestanding staircases provide the perfect division between spaces, without actually creating any kind of dividing wall, maintaining the open plan construct whilst creating an element of structure.