Neither. Open staircases mean noise travels and heat rises.

Well...interior spatial variety can be a very desirable and enriching concept in a house, but only if it is thoughtfully planned and executed. One simply doesn't have an open foyer or open living-family area just to be having them.

For spatial variety to work, it must be carefully planned throughout the primary pathways in a house.

A very successful technique, used by Frank Lloyd Wright, and others, is to change the ceiling height and travel direction from the entry to the main space of the house, usually the living-family room. This can be effectively done, even with 10-foot ceiling heights in the main space.

Your first photo illustrates this with a low ceiling at the entry and then a much higher and larger volume once one enters the house. The second and third photos are simply builder's extravagances without really understanding anything about spatial variety.

Good luck on your project.

Keep your simple farmhouse simple by having no two story spaces, but have a nice oil painting of the Tetons, perhaps by Scott Christensen?

Or, perhaps, Virgil Carter?

I can only think of an agony reminiscent to slow hell when I envision the back breaking torment that would go into cleaning the endless miles of nooks crannies associated with that winding stair mass.

May God have mercy on their soul and they’re employer fabulous insurance. I’d be at the chiropractor 3x a week in a back brace with traction. And don’t even get me started on the carpel tunnel....I’d probably hurl myself from the top banister lol if I didn’t accidentally fall first lol which I would. So clumsy...

We had a catwalk over the living room of our last house and I hated it! Sitting in the living room watching tv you couldn’t hear it because all the sound went up and then all the kids could here the tv upstairs while they were trying to go to sleep. It was also terribly noisy and never felt cozy or inviting. We built that house and that was one of the things I just had to have and regretted shortly after we moved in. Just my 2 cents!

Put the kids and their friends in the basement and enjoy the looks of your open elegant stair every time you look at it.

another vote for no two-story spaces

I am not sure what some mean by "no two-story" spaces...if possible give me an photo example

We have 2 Golden Retrievers....I see fuzzy dog hair wads drifting over to the room below.

Two story foyer is nice, it adds light to your upstairs hallway and drama at the entrance. Two story great room/family room? Another story - all the heat and noise goes right upstairs!! BUT...you can get away with a smaller great room if the ceilings are high! The same size room feels small with a regular height ceiling.

The same size room feels small with a regular height ceiling.

A 9 or 10' ceiling does not feel small.

So in my current tract builder neighborhood, everyone has 9' ceilings on the main floor. My 16'x20' 2 story family room feels HUGE. When I go into the same model house with a bedroom above instead of the 2 story space, the family room feels much smaller. It is still a large room, no doubt, but it FEELS smaller. Just laying out the pros and cons. In my new house, we have 10' ceilings and NO 2 story spaces. I would have liked to keep a 2 story foyer but it didn't work out. I really dislike the 2 story family room for the noise/heat issues mentioned. But is is beautiful and I love how it looks.

Check out the post “anyone with a loft upstairs in a two-story home”