happykate... our cat bathroom is the same! We have a pantry off the kitchen and the back wall has a 2x2 opening in it (6 inches off the floor, with a small step) for the cats to go thru. That entire wall is pantry shelves, so we lost hardly anything to put it there. The other side is the attached garage, where we have a door that lets us in to store cat supplies, misc. stuff at the end where the stairs meet the floor, and the 2 litter boxes and trash. We have a 5W CFL that stays on 24x7 for them and a mini-split off the A/C system in the ceiling. For vacuuming, we just pass the hose through their doorway and walk around to our door. I consider it the most brilliant extra we thought of at framing time!!!

We don't have one in our current house - it's another flight of stairs, and then crawl space. As there's another 900 or so square feet of crawl space, the under stair area isn't used. In our last house, we drywalled it in, and it was a lower ceiling height area of the office on one side, and the workshop on the other side. In the house before that, it was a little wine cellar, as I recall. However, my favorite under stair space was in the house where I grew up. It was originally storage, and then my mother turned it into a cozy little kid place. She put a light in there, carpeted it, pillows all over, and hung pictures. I spent quite a lot of time reading in there. There was also a curtain hanging in front, so it was very cozy. The walls weren't finished or anything (stud walls), so there were places to stash stuff. Best use of crawl space I've ever had!

Uh oh!!! So I had cleaners come in and they noticed some mold. I removed a few cabinets and low and behold there was mold behind the kitchen cabinets near the laundry room where the water heater is. So, now I have my new countertop in, was looking only to reface my cabinets. Now, I'm looking to replace my whole kitchen with Ikea cabinets. They excised the sheetrock and sprayed disinfectant on the area. Scrubbed/cleaned the cabinet. There's negative pressure hepa vacs running for three days in front of it. We don't want to risk it with the cabinets. Any thoughts? Seems like it's limited to this area. What a turn of events!!!!

The shelves look to be a decent size. Do you entertain or have formal dinner parties? That might be the spot to store special serving pieces or your best china right next to the dining room. Is there is a coat closet in the entry? Looks like a convenient area to store the vacuum and cleaning supplies. I don't think it is that appealing for real estate value. You might sell the cabinetry or simply give it away to someone who wants it and would come remove it. Value to me would be the square footage for storage, but the opening will have to be reworked, and I would want it closed from sight.