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.

Hi Steven Rawlins, Designing your own house does present some challenges, I suppose it all depends where you wish to invest your money on what kind of results you end up with. I like the way the house relates to the games room, it would remove lot of the noise from the main house. There are a few area where you might consider some revision of your proposal. You have not stated the location of north, really to make comments orientation is a very important factor and it would help in further edits. Also where you are located would also help (if you are comfortable with the idea) as this can ascertain climate conditions and if it is on Google earth it may be possible to ascertain adjoining properties influences and climate conditions. I roughly estimate that your house is about 15 meters wide, with a roof at 25 degrees you would end up with a massive high roof, the trusses would be significant size and the cost of covering such roof would be considerable. Also a roof acts as a sail, and although it helps that the roof is at an angle, it still is a large area for winds to exercise their destructive force. Special consideration would need to be placed on holding down bolts, and it you are covering with concrete tiles it would be a considerable cost. I think you might like to revise this roof design and reduce span, weight and cost. There are three doors between the "inside and the outside" front door, back door and garage it means that in winter you heat all of the Kitchen, lounge, dining and corridor, this is a lot of area to keep heated in winter (and cooled in summer) your costs for heating and cooling would be considerable. If possible I would consider adding some doors to act as airlocks to reduce heating and cooling costs. The garage which is of good size, has a door opening in the living areas (close to the main corridor). In winter when the front of the garage door is closed and you warm up the car the exhaust fumes will find their way into your kitchen/family/ and the rest of the house. These fumes are generally heavier than air and will most likely be ingested by your children and your pets, furthermore this is an accumulative process which I feels is not amenable to good health. In the master suite you have to cross the room to get from the master bathroom to the walk in robe. This would become an area of max travel as it is an activity done at least every day and sometimes "wetness" is included in the mix. It would mean that the carpet wold become warned and most likely soiled, and if you have a hard floor it would become slippery. There is also some wasted area at the entry of the bedroom which you might like to reconsider. The three toilets shown in the proposed plan all have internal opening doors, these are not very functional (illegal in Victoria unless you have panic hinges) if you have to get to someone inside in an emergency you would find access to them very difficult and might damage them as generaly people fall forward in such areas thus blocking the door opening inwards. Changing to external opening doors or sliders might help to solve this issue. The robes in bedrooms 2,3 and 4 seem to be very small, and not very well located. In bedroom s 3 and 4 you might find it helpful to locate the robes in the wall between the two rooms with some rearrangements of the doors might give you more storage space and act as a noise suppressor between the two rooms. You have a very good storage for linen in the laundry, however this can at times be effected by moisture variation especially if the dryer has heavy use. As pointed out from others above the scullery sees to be very large and it might also generate a lot of traffic considering that this is the only sink in the kitchen. Generally we use a sink for washing up, cleaning vegetable, cleaning fish, getting a glass of water and sometimes in an emergency. Really a kitchen sink should be separated from the stove/cooktop by about one working station which means 800 mm to 1000 mm. This is because in an emergency (pot catching fire) we instinctively move the pot to the sink - quickly. Maybe adding a second sink to the main kitchen might be beneficial. To help in getting a better idea on the were space is misused it is sometime good to add the furniture, and this will show your circulation corridors and were you might reduced space. I hope these comments are of some help, generally it takes me three revision for me to get the Sketch plan to a point where the client has some acceptance of the idea, and sometimes a greater number. This part of the design process is the most important part, hopefully helping the rest of the documentation. Wish you the best for the future, I would be happy to further commend on this project towards a hopefully successful resolution. Michael Manias Building Designers - mm407p@gmail.com

The black tread would be nice if you were having black flooring everywhere else. I think given you are having matte tallowood everywhere else, it is more streamlined and less 'bitsy' if you stayed all with the one surface.

Hi everyone, thank you all so much for your comments- each one has been really helpful & thank you to those who have complimented the work. I still fluctuate with whether I love it or not, but as jdublya says, i think its just a mid reno freak out! My original colour choice was a dark brown, but unfortunately following other suggestions, it ended up being black. Anywho I will continue to push through with all the other plans- light grey walls, white door frames and doors, and black handles. Then have a think about wall art - frames etc. Once all of that is done i will post an update and let you know if we decide to change anything with the stairs. Also thought I'd mention that the colour of the flooring on the first level has come out a lot more red than it actually appears in real life. I am quite excited to finish the project but of course with limited funds, 3 kids, 2 dogs and a kitten it takes a lot of time! Sit tight, will update as and when :) Thanks again all, your encouragement is encouraging ;-)