My cat got a few little pieces of the filet mignon my GF and I made instead of turkey . Now our dog Pearl , she probably ate more of our spread than I did to be honest <| sep |> Nicely done ! In the future you could modify it to become a shoe storage area . from the pictures , it looks like it ' d be high enough to store shorter height shoessandals . You could take all the top planks off , and run two horizontal supports across the underside to keep all the upper planks together . Install a piano hinge on the back , and the whole thing would lift up for storage underneath . You ' d likely have to space it from the wall , or mitre the ends of the surface boards to allow the movement from the hinge . Or install the hinge on the front of the step . That ' d be easier to build , but less convenient to use . EDIT Or even easier , skip the hinge all together and lift the top off as one piece , or several pieces .