Tall thin house with very steep staircases

[OhRosalind]

We are desperately trying to move and there is very little on the market. We have quite specific needs and viewed a house today that ticks a lot of boxes: big garden, enough bedrooms for an office (I wfh) and a guest room (we’re overseas and when family come they stay for weeks at a time), perfect location.

BUT the house is tall and narrow: four floors, two small rooms per floor, so there are a lot of stairs. it’s a totally different layout and feel to what we’re used to (big open plan flat) and the stairs especially (not in the advert, so I wasn’t expecting them to look like that) have thrown me - they felt rather treacherous, but I’m wondering if they could be made safer. DS is a toddler (almost two) so I feel a bit stressed at the thought of him going up and down, though obviously he won’t stay a toddler forever.

The individual steps are marble with a protruding lip. The staircases are narrow, enclosed and steep and the individual steps are very tall and deep. I’m wondering if there is some kind of runner that could make them safer and softer? The staircase is central with a room on each side. Instead of the landing going straight across you step down into the stairwell from each side (this may be the norm when staircases are central, I can only think of one house I know where that’s the case). So even between the two rooms on the same floor you have to step down then up again to move between them and we’d have to use stair gates. DS currently sleeps with us but I’m worried about how that would work once he’s in his own room, even if we picked two bedrooms on the same floor.

Is this just all too much hassle or is it something you can get used to? For our budget and the area we want we will have to compromise on something (or several things) and having a tall thin house gives us a lot more space for our money, so it seems a little crazy to be put off by the stairs. Any advice or experience to share?

I genuinely don’t see a need for all bedrooms to be on the one upstairs floor, unless you’ve young kids and don’t have enough rooms on any given floor to be near them.

DC1(8) is 1.5 floors below us; DC2(3) is one above. They both have "baby" monitors - DC1 for just in case; DC2 is very much in need of lessons in duvet management - I was up there three times last night. Level ish access to a loo from each of those rooms is more important, I think, than being physically close to parents.

We live in a four storey Georgian house and I don't find going up and down a problem at all! Sometimes it's a bit exhausting with my hefty 2yo in my arms but not that bad - our office is top floor and kitchen is basement so I'm up and down a lot on my work days. Tbh I think some posters complaining about stairs full stop might need to do some more exercise!

BUT our stairs are big and wide with large landings on each floor and that sounds quite different. I might be nervous about the stairs you describe.

Teaching young children to do stairs is easy, but I am imagining your stairs being like somewhere we stayed in Amsterdam and they were a bit scary in all honesty. But I also think you get used to it.

Ultimately I don't think there's any reason to be scared of four storeys or stairs, but the ones you describe might make me think twice.

I wouldn't personally but that's partly the faff of all the stairs but more that I'm quite accident prone and wouldn't want the risk.

I'd potentially buy a Georgian house if it were the type with lots of small runs of wide stairs but twisty Victorian ones, definitely not!

We are moving out of a 4 storey house and one of the reasons is the constant up and down stairs. On its own though that is manageable as there is usually a trade off with more / bigger rooms is you are on multiple floors.

For me though steep marble stairs and toddlers sounds a fairly lethal combo.

Could you even attach carpet to marble? Not sure how that would work. We stayed in a villa in Italy once with a layout similar to what you are describing and DS was constantly falling and banging his head. I still remember the stress.

I grew up in a 4 storey house, although the stairs were wooden, carpeted and not particularly steep. I am the third of 4 children. DM said that she spent 10 years running upstairs with a child needing a wee.

Yikes! Just googled Amsterdam stairs and they aren’t anywhere near that bad! Definitely not as steep and the steps are much bigger (I’m short so maybe that’s why it bothers me, would prefer shorter steps).

Interesting to hear some more positive responses too. I had the attic bedroom from age 10 upwards and it was never an issue, so I don’t necessarily have a problem with multiple floors, just wondering if it’s compatible with a toddler. Feels very different to our current setup where DS roams freely from room to room..

I’m pretty sure you can attach runners to marble/granite/stone as I have them used - I assume they glue them but need to look into this. People here are just used to hard stairs (and floors) I think so they leave them exposed. I already find the combination of DS and our hard floors quite stressful.

I wouldn't with toddlers. We have 4 floors and two rooms per floor upstairs, but we moved when our youngest was 4, and she is on our floor. It's the thought of getting to babies on different floors in a fire that would stop me. Years ago I lived a few doors down from a home where 2 of the 3 children died in a house fire.

If it was 3 storeys with normal stairs, fine.
But 4 storeys with death trap stairs, no way.

We had a house like this when I was little and my mum said she hated it as she spent hours in the kitchen on a different floor to everyone else and felt like the maid. I see her point now.

Our house has four floors and I find it OK. The stairs are of wood, of a normal height and curve back on themselves. We moved here before DD was born and, with lots of stairgates, it hasn't been a problem at all. (In fact, now, at age 15, she loves having a whole floor to herself!) I think that what has made it work for us is that the kitchen and dining room are on the same floor and that there is at least one loo per floor. One concern we did have was whether it was safer for DD to be on a higher or lower floor than us. We opted for higher as we have plenty of fire alarms but, in the event of an intruder, did not want her room on a lower floor than ours.

I wouldn't make a house buying decision based on currently having a toddler. He'll be scarily efficient at managing stairs in another couple of years whereas presumably you intend to live in this house for a good few years?

Thanks for all the food for thought. We are going to see a couple of alternatives (ground floor flats with garden and no guest room/office) to better understand what the choice is.

It doesn’t have to be a forever house, I guess 5-15 years depending on circumstances, market etc.

DS is still in with us but bedrooms on the same floor are possible, although the most suitable rooms would be on split floors, I think he’d need to be older for that though as I’d worry about fires etc.

I grew up in a five storey town house (basement kitchen and dining room up to the attic, which was my room). It kept us all very fit and it never occurred to me that it was a problem per se.

netherlands?

we have seen some astounding ones when househunting. unless the building is modern than stairs can be an adventure.
tbh you get used to them quickly. for hard floor steps stick on felt/gummi treads make them easier.

We have a four storey but with the stairs on the side. Is it a bit pokey with the stairs running through the middle?

It’s not a problem at ALL with young kids, you just get used to going up and down. We always have a bag of stuff that gets filled and taken up/down whenever someone goes up. It’s good for your fitness!

And I have a 3 yo & a 1 yr old. We have a stair gate at the top of the house on the floor where their bedrooms are, and a stair gate at the very bottom. We rarely use the bedroom stairgate, like to leave it open so our 3yo can come down to us if he needs. And the downstairs one is handy to let them romp around downstairs - it keeps them down rather than up iyswim.

Hi OP, for me personally, it would not be a compromise i;d be willing to make. Houses such as this, which have a large total SqM (so look appealing in the marketing text) but a very small footprint, feel very cramped to live in.
You see this often in 3 storey new builds, which have increased in popularity the past few years.
The actual 'living' space (lounge/kitchen) is overloaded when compared with the number of bedrooms & you end up tripping over each other.

I used to live in a five story house with the central stairs and two rooms per floor layout you describe. The children were good at negotiating the stairs when young by going down in their bottoms. We had stair gates across the bedroom doors rather than across the stairs. We didn’t have stone stairs though they were carpeted wood.
The house had many great things about it and a few downsides which I’ll tell you about in case it’s useful to you.
Maintenance is difficult on a tall house. We had to get specialist roofers out if we had so much as a blocked gutter.
I was always nervous that the kids would have an accident on the stairs so I was always banning games they wanted to play on them. There was an open stairwell though which you don’t seem to have.
Vacuuming the stairs is a very time consuming job!
The washing machine was in the basement and going up and down to check if it had finished yet was a right pain.
Even the kids get fed up of the stairs and don’t want to fetch or return return things to their rooms.
If I was out in the garden with a very young child I couldn’t pop in to the loo or make a cup of tea because they would be completely out of sight with the layout we had.
Having said all the in our case the amount of space we had made up for that. But when we moved we decided to look for a two story house.

I'd only do it if I could put in a lift and even then....

Italy, not the Netherlands. And having looked into Dutch stairs I wonder if I’m being overly dramatic, they are nowhere near as bad as that (I have vertigo and would have to come down Amsterdam stairs on my bum)! Terrifying! On these stairs the rise is taller than average so harder for older/smaller people I guess.

The housing style here is born of the same issue though - limited space in the centre so people built upwards. The feel is cottagey, small rooms and beamed ceilings, whether you see that as poky or cosy/charming is a bit subjective. Houses in the historic centre just tend to be like that, or huge chilly villas (a garden flat would be a floor/part of a floor) which have their own pros and cons.

The first floor ‘bedroom’ would become a play/daytime living space and then the bedrooms on third/fourth floors to minimise that unbalanced feeling. The biggest positive of this house is that it has lots of outdoor space (unusual in its location) and due to the climate would get a lot of use, including meals outside for much of the year. I suppose I’m conscious that DS couldn’t rampage around freely like he currently does in lots of small stair-gated spaces... but then he won’t be a toddler forever, and gaining a decent-sized garden would be a huge plus.

Just to say I really appreciate all the feedback and hearing everyone’s experiences, its very helpful.

You’d just have to watch your toddler like a hawk and have good stair gates. Getting furniture up and down would probably be an issue. Did the current owner have decent sized pieces of furniture? I’d imagine you’d spend a lot of the year using the garden so your toddler would rattle about out there and it would become an extension of the house anyway. When I lived in Italy and Provence the dining tables were in the garden and we ate outside from April to November.

Would you be planning another baby? The house sounds gorgeous and I think I’d definitely go for it with one 3 year old, you can supervise him and he will get better and better at them. But tired parents, wild older sibling and a crawling baby? Not so sure!
We regularly holiday in a family home with absolutely lethal staircases, it means you have got to know where the kids are and what they are doing at all times. Can’t just let the free roam in the way you can in a safer home. Not that anywhere is particularly safe for dedicated trouble makers.

No, DS will be an only. And yes, the garden would be like another room with meals outside for much of the year so I suppose that would be DS’s space for roaming and rampaging.

What age can kids do stairs unsupervised?

There were big wardrobes and double beds on the top floor, I imagine they were flat-packed (as is most of our furniture).

Sorry I asked that rather bluntly! But i do think that makes the house much more do-able for you. And being in a nice climate means you could keep play dates mostly outside.
Age - Depends on the stairs and the child and how distracted they are? Three for most ordinary household stairs? But you’ll be able to get him in a good routine of taking care on them and slowly ease off as you see how he is. I still hang on to my 4 year olds hand on our twisty stone steps.
I’d have stairgates on the room where he plays and his bedroom and maybe good baby monitors if you can’t hear what is happening there well.

Marble stairs and a toddler? They all take a small tumble at one point or another - the marble would worry me