Some houses have plenty of rooms but still feel like hard work to live in. The front door hits the bottom stair, two people can’t pass in the hall, coats pile up on the newel post, and anyone heading for the garden has to walk through the room where someone’s trying to watch TV. Extra floor space won’t fix any of that on its own. If your hallway and stairs are the parts of the house that cause daily friction, what can a renovation actually do about them?
Quite a lot, as it happens, but only if the routes are planned as carefully as the rooms. Here’s how we’d look at it with you on a renovation in Widnes or anywhere nearby.
- Map the journeys your household makes every day, including where people stop.
- Find the pinch points: door swings, radiators, cupboards, and the bottom of the stairs.
- Opening up a hall changes privacy, noise, and fire escape, not just the view.
- Any change to a staircase is covered by building regulations, including Approved Document K.
- Plan storage so it works with its door open and someone using it.
Watch how your household moves
Think through an ordinary weekday morning. Someone’s coming downstairs while someone else is putting their shoes on. The front door opens as a school bag is picked up off the floor. Later, the shopping comes in and has to get from the door to the kitchen past whoever’s in the way.
Sketch the ground floor and draw those journeys on it, then mark where people pause. A hall isn’t just a corridor. It’s where you arrive, take off coats, sign for parcels, and help a child or an older relative with their shoes. The space beside the front door or at the foot of the stairs might look empty on a plan, but it’s often the busiest spot in the house.
Include everyone who uses the home regularly, and anyone who might in the next few years. A pushchair, a walking frame, a bike, or a dog changes what “enough room” means. It’s much easier to design for those needs now than to squeeze them in later.
Find the pinch points
Most awkward halls have one or two specific problems rather than being too small overall. Look for doors that clash when both are open, a radiator right where you’d stand to open the front door, a cupboard door that blocks the route, or a tight turn at the bottom of the stairs.
Some fixes are simple. Re-hanging a door to open the other way, moving a radiator, or swapping a hinged cupboard door for a different type can free up a surprising amount of space. Heating changes are for a qualified heating engineer, and it’s worth checking where the radiator would move to, so you’re not just shifting the problem a metre along.
Other fixes mean moving or enlarging an opening. If a narrow doorway off the hall is part of the problem, our guide to widening an internal doorway covers the practical side, from clear widths to the wall itself.
Think twice before opening up the hall
Knocking the hall into the living room can make the ground floor feel bigger and brighter. It also means the front door opens straight into your living space, noise and cooking smells travel upstairs, and heat escapes every time someone comes in. People end up walking across the seating area to get anywhere.
It can still be the right answer, but compare it with smaller changes first. Moving an opening, adding glazing above a door, or reorganising where things are stored can sometimes solve the problem while keeping a buffer at the entrance. Our article on small structural changes looks at a few of these options.
The hall and stairs often form the escape route in a fire, so this is also a safety decision. The requirements depend on the house. In a home with a floor more than 4.5 metres above ground level, which often includes three-storey houses and loft conversions, the stair generally needs to be a protected route to an exit, and opening it up to other rooms can break that. The government’s Approved Document B on fire safety sets out the rules, and your designer and building control will confirm what applies to your layout.
Staircases have their own rules
A staircase is one of the most tightly regulated parts of a house, and for good reason. England’s Approved Document K covers the steepness of the stair, the rise and going of each step, headroom, landings, handrails, and guarding. For example, gaps in balustrades need to be small enough that a 100mm sphere can’t pass through, which is there to stop small children slipping through or getting stuck.
That means a stair can’t simply be turned, shortened, or opened up to suit a new layout. If you’d like to change its direction, add a turn, swap spindles for glass, or move it altogether, the new design needs to meet the regulations as a whole. A glass balustrade has to be the right type of safety glass and fixed to take the loads, not just look the part.
Changing a stair also affects the floor above and the space below. Moving the bottom of a flight might solve a clash at the front door but take headroom from the landing, or leave a gap in the upstairs floor that needs a new structural opening. A new or altered staircase is specialist joinery, so it’s designed and made to measure, with the building work around it planned to match.
The structure around the stair
The hole in the upstairs floor where a stair comes through is framed by timbers that carry the joists around it. Walls beside the stair can also be holding up more than you’d think. If the plans involve moving the stair, enlarging that opening, or removing a wall next to it, a structural engineer needs to design how the loads will be carried.
That might mean new timbers, or an RSJ installation where a wall is coming out. Building control then checks the work. We build to the engineer’s design, and we won’t cut into a floor or wall near a stair until that design is in place.
Storage that works with the route
Hall storage often solves one problem and creates another. A deep cupboard holds more coats but may block the hall when its door’s open. A bench is handy for putting shoes on, but it needs room for the person sitting on it as well as for someone to get past.
Draw storage with its doors open and someone using it, then check what’s left of the route. A shallower cupboard in the right place often works better than the biggest unit that fits against the wall.
The space under the stairs is tempting, but check what’s there first. It may house the gas or electric meter, the consumer unit, or pipes that need to stay accessible. In some houses, the stair’s fire protection depends on how that space is enclosed, so opening it up for storage or a cloakroom needs thinking through with your designer.
Living at home while the work’s done
If the hall or stairs are being altered, getting upstairs and out of the house safely during the work needs planning before the start date. There may be a day or two when a route is restricted, so agree the sequence and any temporary arrangements with us up front. Our guide to preparing your home for major renovation work has some practical pointers.
Questions about hallways and stairs
Do I need approval to replace my staircase?
Replacing or altering a staircase is often treated as building work, so building regulations are likely to apply. Check with building control, or read the government’s page on building regulations approval, before ordering anything. Your designer will make sure the new stair meets Approved Document K.
Can I get more light into a dark hall without opening it up?
Often, yes. Glazed doors, a glazed panel above a door, or a wider opening with a door kept in it can bring in borrowed light while keeping the hall separate. Where the hall is part of a protected escape route, the glazing and doors need to be the right fire-rated type, so check before choosing on looks alone.
Should I plan for getting furniture upstairs?
Yes. Think about beds, wardrobes, and sofas when you look at turns, landings, and doorways. It won’t guarantee every item fits, but it can stop a new layout making deliveries harder. Safety features like handrails and guarding still come first.
What if someone in the family will need more support later?
Mention it at the start. Space beside the stairs for a future stair lift, a second handrail, better lighting, or a downstairs room that could become a bedroom are all easier to allow for now. For specific adaptations, get advice from an occupational therapist or other specialist rather than assuming a wider hall is enough.
Is it worth moving the front door?
Sometimes. It can free up a cramped hall, but it affects the outside of the house, the path, the drainage, and possibly planning. It’s a bigger change than it looks, so compare it with the simpler options first.
How do I choose between two layouts that both work on paper?
Test them against the same things: your daily journeys, your furniture, your storage, and how much privacy and quiet you need. The layout that copes best with real life is usually a better choice than the one with the most open floor area.
Talk to us about getting round your home
If your hall or stairs make everyday life harder than it should be, contact us and tell us where the bottlenecks are. We’ll look at the routes, the structure, and the rules with you, and explain what’s realistic before anything is agreed.