I see no advantage to closing off the stairs so I would not plan on that . When I grew up we had 2 staircases one at the entry that mostly was just areally pretty addition to the foyer and one staircase that was used by our family probably 99% of the time it went from the kitchen to the 2nd floor where the bedrooms were so just made sense. Pretty sure when the house was originally built that was the maids staircase, we had no maids . What level wil not be used ? IMO if you are not using the space why build it.

@Patricia Colwell Consulting we'll have two beds down stairs, and for the time being while they're too young to be alone upstairs, kids would share a room and one would be a playroom. When they're older, they'd each have a room and the upstairs would be their bonus/playroom - so, it will eventually be used, but not right now. Although - my dream would be to have every room on the main level, but moved the bonus upstairs to save $ and I don't mind that being upstairs.

If we ever build, I hope for a stair hall like this. But I’d like the stairs to face the back of the house so kids can come in the mudroom, get whatever from the kitchen, then head upstairs to their rooms... If we have a basement, maybe they’d face the front door instead. I think the orientation of the stairs should work with the flow of the rest of the home, however you see them being used.

First, you can only customize stairs to the extent local code permits -- know what is allowed and, importantly, what isn't.

You want your stairs wide enough to comfortably carry your furniture/furnishings and your widest laundry basket up/down it. While an open staircase can help with this, HEAT RISES. If you cannot totally close off the room in which the stairs are located, your heat from downstairs will seek to rise to the highest possible level.

If you put open stairs in your foyer, design the home to be able to close it off the foyer from the rest of the house. You could use a French door between foyer and living area. Then use solid wood doors to close off the rest of the openings.

If you do not also have a downstairs, remember make good use of the under stair space -- utilize it for storage and/or water heater or even build a dog house or mini-office nook beneath the stairs.

https://www.google.com/search?q=uses+for+underneath+stairs&client=firefox-b-1-d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjB5dSaysnuAhWSMlkFHcczA4oQ_AUoAXoECA4QAw&biw=1366&bih=626

I absolutely love walking into a foyer with stairs. It's one of my favorite things in my house, especially decorated at Christmas. I know the current trend is to say they should be in a more used area of the house, but I don't see that at all. We bound down the stairs and turn right for one room and left for the others and there you are, you're there. I wouldn't want to sacrifice all that beautiful style so that I can come downstairs directly into my living room or kitchen and then walk from there to my other rooms. That doesn't seem worth it to me.

My foyer has stairs facing the front door. It does look nice and adds some architectural interest. That said, it's also a bit impractical because no one ever walks in the front door and straight up the stairs to the 2nd floor bedrooms. Is there an option to have the stairs directly accessible from the main living areas rather than the foyer but also have them open?

@pricklypearcactus with the stairs at the front door, they’ll be right between my den and my kitchen So pretty accessible. We are casual people who do casual entertaining so we didn’t do either formal, our entertaining space will be the breakfast area and a sunroom that it is open to

@Emily L oh you sold me on it! I do love the look of stairs at Christmas!! We won’t have formals at the front like most anyway so it will really be pretty accessible to our main area if we put them up there anyway

I love beautiful staircases. However, since yours will be going to areas of your home that you may want the ability to close off in the future, I’d go for the unseen staircase. We have 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, and attic access in our bonus area on one end of the house. I wanted the ability to close off those rooms in the future once our kids are grown and gone so we installed a pocket door at the bottom of the steps. It stays open now since our girls that reside upstairs are only 13 but it can easily be shut at any time. Our stairs are U-shaped and off a hallway. They are stacked over our basement steps.

Are you asking us to comment on a design we haven't seen? Surely you've drawn these two options so why not show them? Did I miss a link?

Certainly the direction you run the stairs will impact where they land upstairs and thus, influence the design of that space as well. For me, while a staircase opening to the foyer is beautiful to look at, as noted above, it isn't very practical as generally only guests are coming in the front door and almost no one (including family) goes in the front door and then straight upstairs. We had two staircases in our old house. one in the foyer and one that landed in the kitchen. The foyer staircase got maybe 1/10 the use. And that might be an overestimate.

BIAS ALERT: I'm a function person. I like function first. Which isn't to say the stairs in our new home won't be pretty, but they aren't in the foyer either.

@res2architect so far only have my "napkin" sketches and they're a mess, but will post plans when I have them. After a meeting on the land today I may have been convinced to do a walkout basement instead of an upstairs, so may not end up having stairs going up at all.... decisions decisions.

Stairs go up and down, depending on which floor you are on. My professional bottom line is to make each space function well and be pleasant to be in.

@Mark Bischak, Architect, as much as I do love the entry stairway especially decorated at Christmas, the more I think about it, it wouldn't be functional for us. My builder convinced me to consider a walkout basement due to the slope of our lot if we put our house a little farther back than I had originally wanted, so I'm going to have to sleep on that!

I try to avoid basement bedrooms if possible, but there are times when they make sense. The less they feel like they are below grade the better.

@Mark Bischak, Architect we'll have three bedrooms on the main level, and most likely, unless we have more kids than planned, the basement would only become a bonus space for older kids later. But, it's nice to have that expansion space if we end up with triplets but not have a full upstairs that may never get used.

IMO a walkout with lots of windows is a veryliveable space and where I live a great place for bedrooms in the heat of summer . It also make saccess to the yard nice if mostly for play space.

If necessary, show the stair options on the napkin sketches. There are few things that can be designed with words alone and a floor plan isn't one of them. It's quite possible the final plan will be driven by something entirely different and the stair will fall into place in support of that thing. Don't try to design one element at a time.

My only opinion about the kind of stair in general is you should decide if you want the upstair space to feel like its part fo the rest of the house or not. If it were a bedroom, the user might feel like they're in a tenant or servant space. I've seen plenty of those in old houses and have often opened the stair up to the floor below. Think of the user first.