We're remodeling our two-story house and would love help planning which switches should control the stairway and hallway lights.

The problem is that the house is split-level into four levels. To visualize it, imagine a two story house, in which the right half (kitchen/LR/entry; above a family room) is dropped a half-story down.

These are the four levels, connected by half-flights of stairs:

4. bedrooms & bathroom

3. kitchen/LR, and entry foyer

2. dark hallway for two office/bedrooms, laundry, garage

1. semi-basement family room

Having lights only on the landings would leave stairs pretty dark. On the other hand, it seems overkill to have separate set of switches for each of the four stairs, plus each hallway/landing. And, if we had switches at the top & bottom of each stairs, plus separate for each landing, my DS would always turn on the landing/hall lights before turning off the stair lights, (seemingly to shoo away the monsters that come out in the dark). And I doubt my DS or anyone would hit the 12+ switches it would take to go from bedroom to the basement & turn off all lights behind him.

Our goals are

- minimize # switches needed when going from top to bottom,

- have separately controlled lights where it makes sense

- and avoid dark patches (or lights left on unnecessarily)

- be able to go in the dark (e.g. when I want to keep night-vision but get a drink..)

We'd love suggestions for where to place switches and what lights to have on the same switch. Thanks!