How big is your house

[Mel Fulks]

Most stairs built today are the steepest the codes will allow, even in extremely large houses with elevators! Those stairs were routinely referred to as "cottage stairs " in carpentry books of 1920s and later. Few people today have ever put a foot
on the ideal stairs of the older ideal ,5 and 1/2 x 12. A steep pitch means a fall DOWN the stairs instead of ON the stairs.

[Rich Riddle]

Ours is a ranch model with half of the basement finished and half more like a crawlspace. All together it's in the 1600 - 1700 square foot range all together but there are only two of us. It more-or-less has mother-in-law quarters in the basement with a kitchenette, 3/4 bath, family room with fireplace, bedroom, and laundry room. If worse came to worst then someone could live down there with us.

[Shawn Pixley]

Actually most stairs are shallower today than the average stair in American Victorian and Arts & Crafts houses from 1850 through 1930. I agree the "cottage stair" was shallower, but it was not the common. Gone are the days with the steep winder stair. The low headroom & steep stair to the basement, the coal room, and the octopus furnace. Part of my architectural career was specializing in historic preservation including many National Trust buildings. Stairs today are generally more safe than those in the past. Of course any individual stair may differ.

In studying historic buildings, the stairs with the "best" stairs were public buildings and buildings / houses for entertaining. My 1920's craftsman had steep stairs with narrow treads going to the upstairs and those going down to the basement. The old "four square" farmhouses had steep stairs to keep the opening from interfering with the room layout. None of these can be built that way today.

I agree that most designs today could be made with better stairs by merely adding one more tread and one more riser.

[Greg R Bradley]

Most stairs built today are the steepest the codes will allow, even in extremely large houses with elevators! Those stairs were routinely referred to as "cottage stairs " in carpentry books of 1920s and later. Few people today have ever put a foot
on the ideal stairs of the older ideal ,5 and 1/2 x 12. A steep pitch means a fall DOWN the stairs instead of ON the stairs.

A friend has a house where the main staircase is that specification - built almost 100 years ago. It seems a pain with 23 steps to the second floor. Perhaps it is what we now think as normal that has caused the change in perception. I do agree that the normal staircase seems TOO steep but that one seems not steep enough.

My house has two steps down to the living room and none anywhere else. Those are going in my remodel. Only steps I'll have is in the pool and 8 steps up from my backyard to my back-back yard where I have my fruit grove.

[Lori Kleinberg]

Just under 1900 sf. 4 bedroom, 1.75 baths on 1 level. 3 car garage (small), not like the older homes. We find it just right for the 2 of us with 2 small dogs and a cat. Plenty of room for small dinner parties. If we need more we just use one of the kids homes.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Not trying to demean anyone who doesn't want to or can't climb stairs, but sometimes I think that we make to much of stair climbing as we age.

LOL!
5 years ago I'd have agreed 100%.
Any more those 5 steps up to our second floor bathroom seem like I'm climbing Mt. Hood! .

Especially when I doze off watching TV in the living room and nature calls after a few hours of being asleep.

I will say though - I have to take most of the blame for it. If I were 80 or 90 pounds lighter, that climb would be a whole lot easier.

[Moses Yoder]

We bought a small very affordable house in the country with a half acre lot and a nice shop with garage doors about 15 years ago. The house is 1200 square feet, about 650 downstairs and 550 upstairs, no basement (crawl space). We just moved our living room into our small dining room this winter, we never used the dining room anyway. THis has worked out well, very comfortable. Our living room has always had the piano in it and various other furniture I built, now it is kind of an all purpose room. We have a full bath up and 1/2 down. I would like to add a nice bath to the back sometime and possibly a library that would be actually a media room but we will see if that ever happens. We will probably live here all our life (you should see how much stuff we have accumulated). I will do some extensive remodeling upstairs at some point probably so we can add a lift on the stairs, or we could add a bath down and put a murphy bed in the living room.

[Paul McGaha]

Ours is a 3 level, 4 bedroom house built in 1995 by Richmond-American. A little under 3000 square foot if I remember correctly.

PHM

[Chris Damm]

We have about 2200 sq. ft. of finished space but are looking to downsize. It's full this weekend with a bunch of grandkids but we could get by with less room. My garage on the other hand is not big enough. at 2150 sq. ft. I could use more space or maybe less junque!

[Roger Feeley]

For us, the quality of the nearby public school outweighed most house considerations. I like to say that I bought the school and the house was just an accessory. For our family of three, we bought a 2400 square foot house. I would estimate that about 800 square feet were a waste of space (foyer, formal living, formal dining).

Our daughter is married and out of the house and we are looking to downsize. We are thinking in the 1200 sq foot range because we still both work out of the house and want a second bedroom as an office. Also (heh,heh), I want a 1200 sq foot basement all to myself for a shop.

[Gordon Eyre]

We have a single story rambler that is 2900 SF with a three car garage. There are four bedrooms and three baths so we have room to accommodate guests when they visit. Our children are all grown so there is just my wife and I. I love our house.

[Brian Elfert]

Actually most stairs are shallower today than the average stair in American Victorian and Arts & Crafts houses from 1850 through 1930. I agree the "cottage stair" was shallower, but it was not the common. Gone are the days with the steep winder stair. The low headroom & steep stair to the basement, the coal room, and the octopus furnace. Part of my architectural career was specializing in historic preservation including many National Trust buildings. Stairs today are generally more safe than those in the past. Of course any individual stair may differ.

I looked at a house built in 1962. The stairs from the basement were like a ladder. It was one of the worst aspects of the house that couldn't really be changed. The bad part is the house was a walkout with the garage in the basement so you had no choice on using the stairs every day.

[Mel Fulks]

Shawn, the period beginning in 1850 was the beginning of a large number of people being able to afford a house and that
meant modest housing. Smaller houses require steeper stairs and in some cases the stairs were steeper than present code. It is common now for large expensive houses to have to have the inferior bare minimum. I don't think people buy
stair climbers because they like to wear skis in the house! What I have seen in building is that the people who buy the
mc mansion stuff are deciding what to build while it is being built and so the contractors order the inferior stairs so they can say NO I CANT DO THAT ,THE STAIR BY LAW MUST BE AS DRAWN. A post last night mentioned there should be something between the extremes and there is, but I don't see architects drawing them. As for aging, I think many who are
young don't understand that in brings impaired balance as well as loss of strength.

[Shawn Pixley]

The problem with older stairs was they used a formula of 2R + 1T = 24"-27." Even before that there were less prescriptive "rules of thumb." Sorry for the inappropriate / insensitive terminology.

If people kept a reasonable tread size the formula works pretty well. Unfortunately it allowed an 8" tread with 8" risers. A steep stair indeed.

Now, the International building code states a maximum riser of 7" (4" minimum) and 11" minimum tread (sans nosing). This makes for an easier stair to navigate. The new tread also states when a landing is neede to break up a run. Ships ladders and spiral stairs have separate requirements. One of my more complicated efforts was a tightening helical freestanding spiral stair with no center column and a single laminated stringer. I took me forever to design, I pity the guy who had to build it. It was one of the elements that caused my to stay out of residential architecture. The house was commissioned by some very wealthy people for a 10,000+ sf house. They paid well but had no taste and continuously changed their minds.

[Tom M King]

I don't even know what size, in sq. ft., our house is. It started at around 1200 when we first built it in 1980. We've added onto it two times, and third coming up. I'm sure I could figure it up, but don't remember doing it in a while. The additions are larger than the original. The most important size is the size of the mortgage. I like 0 for that. Sort of like payments on a vehicle. I like to make one payment, and see how long it lasts.