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My wife and I see these house shows and every so often someone turns up who is terrified of stairs. It's ridiculous. Millions upon millions of children have grown up in houses with stairs and survived without difficulty. I grew up in a three-story house with two more flights of stairs down to the garage.
It's a matter of personal preference, but unless someone in the family has some special disability there is no valid safety reason to avoid two story houses.
You mean they have not ridden down the rails on their butts?
Really, maybe the scared parents should have a helicopter pad installed in the house. They could hover over the kids even in their own house.
Our current house just has bracketed hand rails mounted to the wall. Our former house has a beautiful bannister. We we refinished it, we were careful not to sand out all of the marks from the rivets on the jeans of kids sliding down during the past hundred years. Our kids did it a couple of times, but it was not very exciting. You had to hang on and go very slowly or you end up with the massive newel post impacted into your crotch. So it was not very popular. However the kids of the past obviously had some other method or something given the number of blue jean rivet gouges in the wood.
Yup, I hate to think what the kids who were prevented from learning that falling down stairs isn't fun do later in life, when they have to negotiate outdoor steps with snow on them. Or how about crossing a wet wooden bridge. Or a wet grassy slope. Or wet leaves on a ramp. Or walking up or down a hill with a few loose rocks on it. Or going in and out of a swimming pool. Or being in a skyscraper and the elevator breaks down, so everybody has to use STAIRS, <gasp!>
The comment about Darwinism was spot-on.
OMG! The horror! Please stop. This is worse than a Stephen King novel.....
I grew up in a 2 story home and I have never bought one because of my experience. I have owned ranch style homes with a basement but never a 2 story.
Here's why. Whatever you need is always on another floor. It's a hassle always carrying stuff up and down. There will be a corner of that stairwell where a pile of stuff appears. Stuff waiting to go up or down. The laundry will always be on another floor. If someone is sick or becomes disabled, stairs can be dangerous and very tiring for the caregiver. Even a broken leg can be a challenge. Older pets have problems with lots of stairs and older people do too! Carrying cleaning supplies and vacuum cleaners up and down is a pain too.
Stairs are noisy. Sometimes it sounds like herds of elephants running up and down the stairs. One story homes are quieter. Then there is the disaster thing. One story homes are safer if there is a fire or a tornado/hurricane/earthquake. If everyone is already on the ground floor, it's much easier to escape. And roof replacement/repair and even repainting is cheaper and easier on 1 story homes. A one story home will also take up more of your lot. That means less mowing and yardwork. And if the kitchen is a flight of stairs up from the garage, bringing in groceries is a huge pain. Especially that once a month trip to Costco!
Me personally, ranch is my favorite with all the common areas in the middle and the master on one side and all the kid bedrooms on the other. But 2 story is almost always cheaper per SF. It's less expensive to build.
We have a home with a straight staircase (which I actually like from an aesthetic point of view), with our bedroom on the main floor and secondary rooms on the second floor. My eldest is a pro with stairs now and for the most part the 6 year old navigates them just fine but she did slip and fall a little. Suffice to say my heart stopped. All we can do is teach how to properly handle stairs (i.e. stress holding onto the handrail and paying attention as you're going up/down). I wouldn't discount a second story home due to children.
My parents raised 7 kids in a two-story house. I went from there to an upstairs apartment, and then to another two-story house. I've never lived in a single story in my life. First of all, instead of "OMG! I would have lug laundry and my vacuum cleaner up and down the stairs, how awful!" think, Built-in exercise. Walking up and down stairs is VERY good for you. People who consistently walk up and down stairs are slimmer and fitter. I'm almost 48 and I still run up and down at times. After selling our family home, my dad lived in a walk-up condo until he was 88 (he's now 93 and still in good health).
Secondly, kids and stairs are really a non-issue. We raised three babies in this house and never had a gate. We simply taught them, as crawlers, to turn around backward and slide down feet-first on their stomachs. Any time they were near stairs, we would sing out "Feet first!" and they would turn around and go backward. When they got older and were walking well, they held on to the banister. Never had a single "stair incident" and they are all teens now. To my way of thinking, kids who grow up around stairs are at a safety advantage over those who only negotiate them once in a while.
And of course, you get more yard out of your lot with a two-story house. If you don't want a yard, fine, but it's nice to have space outside for the kids to play. I'm all about the two-story house. Highly recommended.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yellowsnow
I grew up in a 2 story home and I have never bought one because of my experience. I have owned ranch style homes with a basement but never a 2 story.
Here's why. Whatever you need is always on another floor. It's a hassle always carrying stuff up and down. There will be a corner of that stairwell where a pile of stuff appears. Stuff waiting to go up or down. The laundry will always be on another floor. If someone is sick or becomes disabled, stairs can be dangerous and very tiring for the caregiver. Even a broken leg can be a challenge. Older pets have problems with lots of stairs and older people do too! Carrying cleaning supplies and vacuum cleaners up and down is a pain too.
Stairs are noisy. Sometimes it sounds like herds of elephants running up and down the stairs. One story homes are quieter. Then there is the disaster thing. One story homes are safer if there is a fire or a tornado/hurricane/earthquake. If everyone is already on the ground floor, it's much easier to escape. And roof replacement/repair and even repainting is cheaper and easier on 1 story homes. A one story home will also take up more of your lot. That means less mowing and yardwork. And if the kitchen is a flight of stairs up from the garage, bringing in groceries is a huge pain. Especially that once a month trip to Costco!
Me personally, ranch is my favorite with all the common areas in the middle and the master on one side and all the kid bedrooms on the other. But 2 story is almost always cheaper per SF. It's less expensive to build.
It sure keeps you in shape, though. If you have to go up and down stairs 15 times a day, that's a lot of movement that you just accidentally do during the course of your day, especially if you're carrying stuff.
LOL...my SIL would not allow her kids to navigate the stairs. Period. They were carried up and down until they were like 5 years old. I let my kids crawl up the stairs as soon as they were interested (with supervision). They had free range on the stairs once my youngest was 2 or so.
Guess who fell down the stairs and got hurt? My niece. My own children seem to be made of rubber.
Personally I prefer a single story home. In a two story house, everything I ever need is on the other floor.
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