Storage closet with door.

We put a wet bar under our stairs.

{{gwi:1381617}}

We have a bar fridge underneath on the right.

Carrie

I like both of those ideas, but one suggestion, for the sake of looks, would be to do the little landing like Carrie did in the above picture, to break up the line of the stairs a bit.

we will do it with one step at the bottom ;)
I am starting to think out of the box - no reason we can't close the side in the picture and have it open to the kids playroom - with a cubbie unit for storage of toys, etc...
hmmmm....

A friend of mine enclosed the area under the stairs and then slipped in her extra refrigerator opposite the stair landing. It fit perfectly and keep it out of the way.

We have always enclosed this area and used it as closet storage but there is wasted space due to the incline of the stairs. But cubbies are a good idea and I love the wet bar.

A couple of houses ago, we had stairs that led straight down like yours and we did a built in entertainment unit for tv, vcr, etc.

The code in my area requires drywall on the underside of the stairs if the area is enclosed- even for storage.

We have our under-stairs finished off and use it to store the kids toys. They can throw all their junk in there and close the door and "poof" a clean room.