We‘re about to tackle our kitchen renovation. It’s huge with a lot of wasted space. Our dilemma is that there are 2 steps from the kitchen out onto the back deck. The house is 102 years old and been added onto over the years.

Any ideas on how i can make this step up look like a feature rather than a bad design plan?

At the moment its just a wooden crate step. I’d love to put in either French or sliding doors to open the area to the outside a bit…

What are you going to use for the new flooring?

We’ll likely go hybrid/laminate

A bit left of field, but as you say it’s a great size kitchen, so I’m wondering if you could extend the steps along the wall and make it a wider entrance? Give it a more indoor / outdoor feel? Depending on the design style you’ve chosen, you could incorporate a timber / decking look, or even a concrete buffer look for the steps

Do you have a floor plan

Jan, that’s what I was thinking to extend that doorway as it has a lot of room to the right. A timber decking floor on the step is a great idea to flow into the garden

Kate, thanks I don’t but I’ll sketch one up today and post

Hello Vicky, In addition to doing some structural work to create a wider open access point to your outdoor area, have you ever considered lowering the floor level of this outdoor area so to do away with the step-up all together?

Hope this helps, Malcolm.

Hi Malcolm, unfortunatley the block is quite sloped so by the end of the deck theres not clearance to the ground

Perhaps just make a larger landing type step that is the full depth of your kitchen cabinets. If you can use flooring on the top to match your new flooring and a riser that ties in with your kitchen finishes, it could like like it was always meant to be that way.