Walls and Ceilings - Half wall in stairwell for kitchen bar

We live in a 50's style home. The back door opens directly into the stairwell with our SMALL kitchen off to the right in which all you see is the refrigerator when walking into the house. (Not making it easy for visitors to see into the kitchen.) The kitchen also has big windows so much of the usable wall space is taken up by the windows, so the stove and refrigerator are on the stairwell wall. We are wanting to remove half the wall in the stairwell to put an eating counter there. Then make the windows smaller so we can put the appliances that are currently on the stairwell wall on the exterior walls of the kitchen. This would open up the back door area making our kitchen more open to visitors and provide a walk area through the kitchen to the dining room without interferring with most of the kitchen activity.

Is there anything wrong with planning a kitchen eating bar on a stairwell? I have never seen one, but I don't see why this wouldn't work if we put a short backsplash on it?

Thanks

Welcome to the diy forums!

You would first need to find out what type of framing is in that wall. The wall might be load bearing. Other than that I'd think it would be ok although you would want to make sure that anything on the ledge couldn't be knocked off and harm anyone on the stairs. Maybe install a sheet of glass - you could still have the view but no danger of anything be knocked down the stairwell.

Snack bar overhang is typically 11". Then, you place bar stools in front of that. If I understand correctly, location is in a traffic pattern, and recommended minimum passage behind bar stools is 48" where there is traffic behind (certainly nothing less than 36"). Your idea would perhaps visually open up the space by moving the appliances, but placing a bar in traffic would create congestion. If traffic is not a problem, attaching bar to existing wall is an option, as stairwell wall is likely load bearing.