Ok I have a single story house with a full basement. The previous owners had removed and filled in the spot where the basement stairs were (long story), and I am restoring that. Since there is no second floor, I figured I'd put a floating coat closet over the stair well. Solid plan so far.
So a contractor friend was telling me pretty adamantly that I shouldn't do an angled wall/floor for the closet. Instead, I should do a flat level floor that is raised up to the appropriate height, and there would just be a some vertical 'wall' space behind the door before you get to the floor. I had no problem with the angled floor myself. So in his plan, there would basically be both. Angled ceiling in the stairwell, and a level floor in the closet. So there would be a triangular area of dead space under the closet.
Before I get into the details, the first thing I want to ask is what do you guys think about this? Are angular floored closets fine? Or do you have to go with flat?
In case i'm not describing things well, here's a very rough sketch of what I'm trying to do. Here's my amazing artistry:
![Image]()
Now moving on from the theory, I started building the closet today, starting with the base of the rear wall, which is going to be over the stairs. At my contractor friend's suggestion, I started at the 1st floor subfloor where the closet door is going to be, and continued a line out from there at an angle parallel to the angle the stair tips make. The problem is that what you get when you do that, is a wall base that is WAY too high. And if I were going to build it his way, with a flat floor, that floor would be 30 inches off the ground! See pictures below:
![Image]()
![Image]()
Clearly that beam (the back wall of the closet is going to rest on it) is way too high. Now, the floor joists are themselves about 7" tall. So in theory I could move that beam down a few inches while keeping the angled floor. I feel like doing that, plus doing an angled floor instead of a flat one, would leave plenty of closet space plus plenty of headroom. I guess the ultimate question here really is, how much head room is there? Because were it not for that, I could make a closet floor that was just a continuation of the real floor, but i certainly can't. I felt like the bottom of the floor joist you stair at as you walk down the stairs is high enough (theres probably a name for it), so that extending ceiling from that bottom corner, upward, parallel to the stair tips, would be fine. But my contractor friend is maybe 4 or 5 inches taller than me. He clears that joist but just barely.
As I type this, I'm thinking I might want to just build up a rough ceiling that I can test at different heights and see how much clearance there is.
But if I do go with the angled closet floor, I'm wondering what the best way to do that is? I was thinking I would build it sort of the same way you build a staircase. The "stringers" boxed in on the top and bottom with plywood, all cut to the right angles, then attach that whole structure in as the floor of the closet. This would also make it easy-ish for me to do any shapes I wanted, like say do a little but if a flat ledge, then curling up into the angle.
So to draw what I'm saying, I could use 2x8 or 2x10 or if need be, 2x12 to make closet floor joists that would be the blue parts in this image:
![Image]()
So a contractor friend was telling me pretty adamantly that I shouldn't do an angled wall/floor for the closet. Instead, I should do a flat level floor that is raised up to the appropriate height, and there would just be a some vertical 'wall' space behind the door before you get to the floor. I had no problem with the angled floor myself. So in his plan, there would basically be both. Angled ceiling in the stairwell, and a level floor in the closet. So there would be a triangular area of dead space under the closet.
Before I get into the details, the first thing I want to ask is what do you guys think about this? Are angular floored closets fine? Or do you have to go with flat?
In case i'm not describing things well, here's a very rough sketch of what I'm trying to do. Here's my amazing artistry:
Now moving on from the theory, I started building the closet today, starting with the base of the rear wall, which is going to be over the stairs. At my contractor friend's suggestion, I started at the 1st floor subfloor where the closet door is going to be, and continued a line out from there at an angle parallel to the angle the stair tips make. The problem is that what you get when you do that, is a wall base that is WAY too high. And if I were going to build it his way, with a flat floor, that floor would be 30 inches off the ground! See pictures below:
Clearly that beam (the back wall of the closet is going to rest on it) is way too high. Now, the floor joists are themselves about 7" tall. So in theory I could move that beam down a few inches while keeping the angled floor. I feel like doing that, plus doing an angled floor instead of a flat one, would leave plenty of closet space plus plenty of headroom. I guess the ultimate question here really is, how much head room is there? Because were it not for that, I could make a closet floor that was just a continuation of the real floor, but i certainly can't. I felt like the bottom of the floor joist you stair at as you walk down the stairs is high enough (theres probably a name for it), so that extending ceiling from that bottom corner, upward, parallel to the stair tips, would be fine. But my contractor friend is maybe 4 or 5 inches taller than me. He clears that joist but just barely.
As I type this, I'm thinking I might want to just build up a rough ceiling that I can test at different heights and see how much clearance there is.
But if I do go with the angled closet floor, I'm wondering what the best way to do that is? I was thinking I would build it sort of the same way you build a staircase. The "stringers" boxed in on the top and bottom with plywood, all cut to the right angles, then attach that whole structure in as the floor of the closet. This would also make it easy-ish for me to do any shapes I wanted, like say do a little but if a flat ledge, then curling up into the angle.
So to draw what I'm saying, I could use 2x8 or 2x10 or if need be, 2x12 to make closet floor joists that would be the blue parts in this image:
