Our house was renovated before we bought it, turning the small attic space into a couple of large rooms. (They raised the roof.) When they did this, they had to fit stairs in somehow, since the only way up before was (judging by the shoddy paint job in the hallway) a pull-down set of stairs in the hallway. There wasn’t really room to add stairs, so the stairs are in the living room, and are very steep. We haven’t fallen down them though, so it’s not a problem. We moved in with the intention of redoing the stairs, but it’s not that big of a deal now that we’ve gotten used to them. Plus, after walking up and down stairs on an aircraft carrier, these are nothing.
Yes and my little daughter loves them. Cool for sitting on, throwing a ball up and down and I suspect, when she’s about 12 years older, as the prime location for 3 hour telephone conversations.
Yup. Just your standard flight of stairs, nothing terribly interesting about it.
Although when I moved to Dublin ten or eleven years ago, I rented a flat in one of those Georgian houses with lots of steps to the front door. The main body of the flat was on that level and it had a spiral staircase down to a bedroom, which opened out onto the garden.
Very swish.
Although I did fall down it a few times. It’s no mean feat to fall down a spiral staircase, I can tell you, and anyone who reckons that landing on a bed makes up for the battering you get on the wrought iron staircase on the way down has never done it.
It’s from India I think but I can’t be arsed looking it up.
A friend of mine has a great-uncle from the Inishowen peninsula. In common with about half the population of Inishowen, uncle Tom’s surname was Doherty. In such an environment, nicknames flourish and because Tom was one of the first in the area to build such a house, he was known as Tom a Bhungalow (pronounced wungalow for those not familiar with Irish).
After living the first 17 years of our marriage in various apartments, all but one of them (a townhouse complex) being on one level, my wife insisted on a two-level house. She hated living on the same floor all the time. We don’t mind the stairs; they separate the bedroom from the living space, and it’s nice to be able to retreat up there if you want some real peace and quiet.
Plus, given the requirements of our family, a single level home would probably have been unaffordable. As it is now, we have a funky little older house that suits our purposes pretty well.
I live in a rancher, so we just have stairs going down to the basement. Kid’s playroom and the laundry room are down there, so they get used all the time.
It sounds lazy, and it’s just one floor, but I want a laundry chute. The washer and dryer (and the hamper, for that matter) are at the opposite end of the house from the steps. You have to carry it all the way across the house, down the steps, and then all the way back across the basement to the laundry room, ending up right underneath where you started out. This summer’s project is a laundry chute.
Yes, the standard staircases up to the second floor and down into the basement, plus two steps down from the living room to the dining room/kitchen area.
The upstairs staircase is a little steep; it’s not in the standard rise/run ratio. Mr. S has been wanting to fix it for years, but is still working/deciding on the calculations. The foot is in a narrow hallway, so no room to extend it there. We will probably end up with the top step jutting into the living room ceiling a bit. We looked into getting a spiral, but the front hall is too narrow and the rotation wouldn’t come out right. Also the wall we would have to take out contains a lot of ductwork that would be a pain to move.
The house is bilevel because when they were digging the foundation for the addition (where the living room is now) they hit a pocket of clay, very common in this area, and couldn’t go any deeper. I think it adds a bit of interest.
I’ve always thought it would be cool to have a fire pole. It’s be a tough job teaching the dogs to use it, though.
We have an old 1890s farmhouse. There are two stairs up the deck to reach the door. Then there is a short step up to get into the kitchen. Then an average step up to the living room. Then a 2" step to the fireplace room or the bathroom. Then…the staircase from hell. The steps are about 3" higher than normal steps and they’re too shallow to walk up normally, so you sort of have to go up sideways.
Best stair-related incident: I was moving a mattress from the upstairs bedroom and wanted to sort of fold it in half to push it down the stairs. I sat on it and was bouncing to get it folded, and slid down the satin covering at approximately 1,000 mph and crashed into a wall at the bottom of the staircase. I think I may have left a vapor trail behind me.
We don’t use the upstairs of our house unless absolutely necessary. It will remain a storage area until we change the staircase.
Coming into the house from the front door - 2 steps, ditto coming into the back door. Going to the basement - 14 steps. Going upstairs 10 stairs to the landing, turn left 4 stairs to master bedroom, turn right at landing 4 stairs to hallway and 2 bedrooms.
I don’t mind the stairs. I like the way the split at the landing seperates the master bedroom from the other two upstairs rooms.
I call my house, Chez Stairmaster. It was originally built in 1942, but has been restored and updated by the previous owner. He jacked up the roof and turned the attic into a second floor.
So…
3 steps from the sidewalk to the front door, then…
about 12 steps from the first floor to the second, but wait, there’s more! The staircase is very narrow and first turns right at the bottom, then left up at the top. Once you get up there…
2 smallish steps from the landing up to the hallway, then…
2 steps down to the bedroom… And just when you think you’ve had enough stairmaster workout… try to change clothes in my room…
2 more steps up into the walk in closet.
Needless to say, a lot of things that belong upstairs sit downstairs for days or weeks, because I can never remember to bring object X with me and refuse to make extra trips up and down the stairs to say, carry a scrunchie up to the upstairs bathroom. I have this pile of stuff that needs to go upstairs some day… and there’s a pile upstairs of stuff that needs to come down.
I don’t, but my mom’s new house does. A lot. it’s like one of those cat climbing house toys.
Stairs to the front porch, tilted slightly down on the right.
Enter weird foyer place (about 4’ deep).
On the left are about 3 steps leading down to the garage.
On the right are 6/7 steps up to the living room.
Go up to the living room.
To the left are 5/6 steps up to the room above the garage.
To the right are the stairs to the second floor - half flight, landing, 90 degree turn for the rest of the stairs to get upstairs.
Forward, 2 steps, landing, turn right, 4/5 steps to the kitchen/back door.
Also on the right, but near the kitchen, are 4/5 steps down to the master bath/bedroom.
Go to the back porch, turn left, and there are 5/6 steps down to the yard.
Walk forward about 2 feet and there are two steps to get up to the OTHER porch with the hot tub.
Jesus. I can’t draw a map of that place. It’s a maze of steps. But there are huge floor to ceiling windows by the front and back porch, and the living room goes all the way to the top of the house. COOLEST HOUSE I’ve ever seen.
I live in a two-story townhouse. There are 13 steps between the two floors. I agree they’re a pain to vacuum, but I don’t mind having them otherwise. Unfortunately my cats have decided that the vertical slats along the banister make good scratching posts.
Well, since I don’t get the OP - I’ll play it straight…
Trilevel home with 1 semi-step into the house. 6 steps to the upstairs, 5 steps to the downstairs. Lower level has back door with 5 stairs to the backyard.
Not normally too much of a problem, except when Spooner had knee surgery … a 50+ lb dog is a PITA to carry up & down the stairs for 2 months. (But we love her anyways…)
They are stairs that are in the centre of the house that go up and have a landing at the top then they have more stairs that branch off to the right and the left of the top landing.
I envy y’all yer stairs. I grew up in Florida where everyone lived in a ranch house with no basements (the water table is too high). My fondest memeories as a child were going to see the grandparents in Alabama who lived on the side of a mountain (read minor foothill) and had tri-level house. That meant Slinkys!
