My parents' old house had a wonderful oak front staircase that my six siblings and I used to race up and down, taking them two or three at a time, with only a casual hold on the railing. I don't know how we managed to never slip or fall. Now, the timber backstairs were steep, and had narrow treads and were poorly lit. We NEVER ran up or down them, but held tightly to the railing and hoped to heck we managed to stay upright. As an adult, my previous home had carpeted stairs, which I slipped on (wearing socks) and fell down twice, though thankfully I was closer to the bottom than the top. My current home has timber stairs with three narrow stainless steel runners stood on edge and inset horizontally across the front of each tread (this is supposed to help reduce risk of slips). I doubt I will get over the anxiety of taking another tumble, so I never go down them wearing socks, and if barefoot, I hold onto the railing for dear life and take it nice and slow. So far so good.

Michelle, I'm not a builder but am building with hubby, a single storey limestone home. Our daughter built a two storey limestone home just down the road, that hubby also built for her and the extra foundations she had to install would be at least twice more than we have for our single storey, not to mention that there were allot of short walled founds leading off the perimeter of her home to assist in less likelihood of wall roll out and the inspector called it. Cost for you, will depend on whether you have adequate foundations to carry a second storey and usually that is never the case. All the lower walls will need double the support and it usually has to carry on down to the foundations, depending on whether you have a solid concrete slab or concrete stumps that are accessible. This would mean most of the plaster being removed and hoping that you find no nasty surprises as far as the condition of the existing frame in the home, the builder would as I mentioned, have to add structural supports to carry the second storey. Most often, second stories are built with a hardiplank type exterior and certainly not brickwork as you would then difinitely have to have extra foundations in for such a reno and you would have to start asking yourself if it isn't better to demolish as this type of reno can be extremely costly. You might be lucky but probably highly unlikely, to have adequate structional integrity to be able to add a second storey, without everything I have mentioned to be skipped in any way. I hazzard a guess that such a reno would cost you $250,000+ and maybe more. Would love to know what you finally decide to do and your builders estimate. Good luck. Cheers, Barbara

I didn't notice the leather @Neryl Hollingsworth! It's a chair-table hybrid it seems. My friend took this at a gallery some where, and we've been trying to track the piece down ever since!

Hi, carpet has a consumer rating system that guides on the durability of each piece of carpet. It is designed to show you how a carpet wears. There are four ratings, light duty, medium duty, heavy duty and extra heavy duty, plus stairs. Each of these indicate the suitability of a carpet for a specific area. Stairs and passages are the hardest on carpet as the wear is concentrated. visually, how the higher rating is achieved is easily seen as there is more yarn per square yard to enable sharing of the wear. It is often expressed as a weight measurement per oz. eg 38oz. This is not usually provided by the manufacturers as they often vary it except in high weight or commercial carpets. what none of the above tells you however is how the carpet performs for flattening or staining. nylon has a good durability and flattening resistance, but average stain resistance so needs a treatment. This is because the structure of the fibre allows further colour ingress (stains) unless it is protected. polyester has a very good stain resistance particularly when it is solution dyed however it is extremely prone to flattening, particularly in doorways and track areas. If you are going to select a solution dyed polyester, my tip would be to get the tightest and thickest version you can, and make up some of the offcuts into mats for the doorways by getting them edged at a rug overlocker. my choice would be the solution dyed nylon in at least a heavy duty grade with the best underlay you can get (helps the durability and feels softer) cheers