Staircase: completely closed off on both sides with walls or open banister on one side?

[MinimalistMommi]

It's crunch time and I need to make a decision! We're in an old Victorian workers terraced cottage with two reception rooms with a staircase running up the middle with two wall. For reasons of wacky layout upstairs the staircase needs to be reversed on itself so we are having old one knocked out and new one built with hassle of building regs etc. So, do we keep both the old walls so the stairway will be quite dark or do we have it open on one side onto our living room where our woodburner, TV etc it? All that is in our middle reception room (not the front room) and has our galley kitchen off it. We will use understairs space as storage.

OR, do we have an open banister which will keep the stairway light with built in under stairs cupboards for vacuum cleaner, coats etc?

Please give opinions!
We going for a cottage style (not twee, but with sanded floors, national trust type colours etc so modern cottage)
I don't know what to do and our plans are being drawn up now!

can you get light into the stairwell by any other means - like a solar tube or velux maybe ?! as that might sway your pretence ?!?

preference !! blooming auto text !!

open plan staircase gives less privacy and much worse heat loss. All the downstairs heat will rush upstairs.

I know the style of house you mean and the staircase does feel rather closed in.

a sun pipe, or even a fake skylight with "daylight" lamp would make it feel better. I assume in a terrace you have no scope for a window even on the top landing.

We have a house like this, but we sit in the front room and the dining room is in the back. We also have a woodburner in the living room. We have all our original walls, but out ndn (who also has a woodburner in the front) has a completely open staircase. This makes her downstairs room very large and i imagine the heat from the woodburner not only warms all of her downstairs (we sometimes leave the door open, but the dining room is still chilly and the bathroom is baltic), but also probably warms her upstairs more easily if she leaves a door open, as the air can flow more freely. I am a little jealous of her, although i don't know the realities of the situation!

Thank you for replies everyone!

Janek we would have organised our house with front room as living room and dining room in back reception room but our house is in a little city centre back street, we have cars going past (not heavy traffic at all and it's 30 mph but cars still drive past never the less) so it's quieter in the back room hence popping our living area there. We dont have double glazing, but the original sash windows.

I've wondered if this is super odd or if other people have ever done this?! When we buy new furniture etc there will be a sofa in both front reception room and the back reception room (where TV/woodburner will be) In the front room there will be a white table with a white bench (against the stair wall) and two painted chairs. Its actually easier for us to install woodburner into back reception room as the fireplace is all opened up. The fireplace in front room got covered over (although I knocked on the wall and it sounds hollow.) Do you think this layout is OK or really odd?!

Do you have traffic passing or are you in a street with no through traffic?

Just to be clear, we wouldn't be getting rid of both of the walls and making it completely open plan, just one wall to reveal the staircase on one side if that makes sense. If we do go with this I thought it might be a benefit as woodburner could help heat upstairs too. We're getting a Clearview so it should be very efficient.

PigletJohn haven't thought of a sun pipe, we're up against it money wise a bit because so much needs doing...so does this go through loft and ceiling I'm assuming? I've seen them on house shows but know nothing about them.

I'm so stuck about this, I'm terrible at making decisions.

yes, a sunpipe has a big reflective pipe going from the "skylight" in the ceiling and up to a light-gathering dome on the roof.

The quality of light does give you an impression of outdoors. It might be possible to fake it with a frosted skylight-like panel in the ceiling with some "daylight" lamps inside. Something like those SAD lamps perhaps.

We have a similar set up and I don't know why but I wouldn't like the staircase being visible to the front window, I'd expose it to the middle room instead

Are the walls supporting? The layout in our old house was like this, but both walls were supporting so without an rsj we couldn't have opened it out.

To be honest, my preference is to have both walls, Im not really a fan of open staircases in rooms, feels less cosy somehow. With regard to light, is it a huge issue at the moment? How much time do you spend on your stairs to warrant a sun tube etc?

Finally, do you have a loft conversion? If there is an existing door at the bottom of the stairs, you might need to keep it for fire regulations. We had one and couldn't remove it due to a loft conversion already done by the previous owner.

We used to have the living room in the back room as our front door opens into the front room, as i presume yours does, so we thought it would be warmer - essentially the front room was a giant porch! We had a dining table in there, but more often ate in front of the tv in the back. Then dd was born and it seemed better that we use the dining table.

This was the main issue really - it was so far from the kitchen to the dining room that we could hardly be bothered to take our dirty plates out. And we hardly ever wiped the table . And now we have two dds i'm in and out of the kitchen a lot during a meal, so i'm glad it's only the room next door.

Then one day we swapped the rooms round and the whole house seemed to 'work' much better. The front room turned out to be larger than the back. We didn't move the toys into the living room, so it was more zen in there and less messy. There is a big window so i can nosy at what is going on in the street. For us it is much better this way round. But it was fine the other way, it did feel cosier sitting in the middle of the house.

And our street isn't 'busy' but quite a lot of cars drive up and down. It is a residential street, rather than a main road, and it is a bit of a ratrun, plus there is a curry house on one corner and a cheap off licence at the end of the road, both of these increase the traffic. E don't find it too noisy, although the odd taxi idling out there can be.

Oh and our ndn has a sofa under her front window, with a table in that half too, and then a sofa and tv in the back.

Is your woodburner already fitted? They can fit one to a closed chimney too - they just have to open it up, they found the original load-bearing arch under ours, but it was wonky so they still fitted an rsj, which was a shame.

Olivia the staircase walls look like they're probably load bearing, although the wall that goes on to our back reception room already has a huge alcove cut out of it where the new foot of the staircase will sit, it was like this when we bought the cottage. Currently our tumble dryer resides there there is a large section which goes up to ceiling which is the load bearing it I guess.

You're right, about dark staircase not being a problem really but Im just conscious that it will be very dark you know? Obviously there will be a light which can be flicked on...

No loft conversion currently and it's not something we plan to do as I think it would be far to expensive for us. No door at bottom of stairs where they currently are.

Jenek yes our front door opens directly onto front room and I have thought in the past it is like a huge porch all though the DC do draw at the table in there and eat meals etc yes it is a pain carrying stuff through.
Originally it was going to be our 'proper' living room with TV ,woodburner etc but I'm quite noise sensitive which is why shortly after we moved in we switched everything. I'm not 100 % about having table in the front room as it doesn't seem natural flow to me. This does worry me as once we have our woodburner installed it pretty much needs to stay where it is put in! We can't afford/need two woodburners. Some of our NDN have the luxury of having two, one in each reception room. The bonus I thought of having he woodburner for us is that it would heat out kitchen where we have no heater. On the plans the entry way to get up the staircase will be off this back room, I thought I would look odd to have it in corner of front room if that makes sense. So woodburner not fitted yet.

We are also on a residential street (There is no way I could be on main road at all) with on street parking.

I'm quite a minimalist so I'm wondering if it would look more 'calming' visually to keep both the walls for me.

Do you have two bedrooms upstairs or three? We have two, Our DD's share a bedroom and me and DH have front master bedroom, the bathroom is in what would have been the third bedroom a very, very long time ago.

maybe you could add a motion sensor light that comes on automatically when you use the stairs - try Maplins online - they are inexpensive and easy to fit .

Some houses round by us have their stairs coming out of their back room, so essentially the stairs go the other way through the house (ours go right-left, theirs go left-right even though the front door and kitchen are on the same side, so the 'hall' just contains the door to the understairs cupboard), so i think you're right about it being weird if the stairs came out of the corner of the front room. This way, you kind of spiral into the house and up the stairs iyswim.

We just have two bedrooms, of a similar size (although presumably the front is a little larger as the front room downstairs is), the bathroom is at the end of the kitchen, so miles away if you need it in the night.

I think open-plan stairs could be a calm sight as it could make the room seem more spacious. You could also potentially fit a large piece of art on the stair wall if that's to your taste. It depends how much junk you usually have hanging around waiting to go up your stairs.

I'm just trying to visualise our house with one of the walls gone and i can't decide if it might just look a bit weird though. The stairs would be part of the living room. Then presumably a door in the wall at the bottom leading through to the front room. Is the only reason you are thinking of taking out the wall the light-on-the-stairs issue? If yes, i wouldn't worry about it, personally.

What did you go for in the end please? Ours is open-plan but currently deciding whether to have the front or window room open to the stairs too

Dammit! I meant to say front or middle room - thanks