How Much Hall Do You Still Need Past Under-Stairs Storage?

What is the walking line in this hall?

The walking line is the floor between the face of the storage and the other side of the hall. In a wide hall you barely notice it. In a cottage, a terrace, or a hall that is also the way to the kitchen, it is the strip that goes first.

Walk from the front door to the foot of the stair, then on to the next room, with empty hands. Walk it again while you put a coat on. Walk it a third time with the thing you actually carry: a bag, a bin, a pushchair, a laundry basket. The second and third walks are the ones the unit has to allow.

If a radiator, a console table or a pile of shoes already makes you turn sideways, say so in the brief. A new front will not widen the hall.

What opens into that line?

A door or a drawer that needs the hall in order to open is using the walking line, even if you open it once a day. Open the cupboard that is there now and see where the door stops. A new door on the same swing needs that same arc, unless the brief asks for a different one.

Open the front door as well, if it swings into the hall. See whether that arc meets the place a new door or a bench would sit. The fronts guide is where the newel and the stringer are drawn. On this page, write down what crosses the floor you walk on.

A drawer pulled to full depth is a temporary wall. If it meets the opposite skirting before it is fully open, the back of the drawer is as hard to reach as the back of a cupboard. The drawer guide covers depth and load. Here, the question is whether someone can still pass the open drawer.

Where does a bench sit in the same hall?

A bench under the stair is useful, and it projects further than a flat door. The person sitting needs knee room. The person walking past needs the rest of the floor. On a weekday morning, with shoes down, both can be true at once. The bench is then in the walking line even when nobody is sitting.

Put a chair, or a box about the depth you have in mind, where the bench would be, and photograph the hall past it. You do not need a finished design. You need to see the floor that remains.

If the bench is only a lid, and nobody sits there, say that. A lid that lifts uses a different slice of the hall from a seat that stays out all day.

What do you carry through on an ordinary day?

Write the awkward things, not the empty walk. A vacuum on the way to its cupboard. A bike that spends the night in the hall. School bags at the bottom step. A pet bed. If any of those stay, the walking line includes them, or the brief says they are moving.

The shoe and boot note is the tray at the low end. This page asks whether you can still get past that tray once the shoes are on it.

A hall that is also the only way to the meter, the kitchen or the back door is a route, not a lobby you dress in and leave. Someone will be trying to pass while someone else is still in the way. Say which door that route serves.

What should I send before the fronts are drawn?

Send the hall as you use it, not a styled empty shot. A tape in the photo is enough to show today's clear width, from the face of the existing cupboard, or from the stringer if the void is open, across to the opposite wall. This page does not turn that measurement into a rule for every house.

Add what opens into the hall, and what stays on the floor. Manufacture still waits on a verified measure of the opening. Photos scope the walking line. They do not skip the site measure.

• A photo from the front door toward the stair, and one from the stair looking back.
• The clear width you can walk now, with a tape in the frame.
• The front door, the cupboard door, and any other door that opens into the hall.
• What you carry through, and what is staying on the floor.
• Whether anyone will sit on a bench in that line.