No and no.

A drawing might help people visualize it.

I agree with creek side.

Friends of ours had a beautiful home that had been used as the model for a sub, which meant all kinds of extras so they bought it. She said in the many years they'd lived in it, the one thing they hated was the step down. Every so often someone wouldn't see it, and would sort of fall--especially older people, relatives who were busy talking, etc. An accident waiting to happen.

Anne

Let's see if this helps:

Can you show us the existing plan for the first floor? Maybe someone can come up with an alternative as to how to do the stairs differently, since you are moving them anyway. Do they go only to the 2nd floor, so that a door located near them would open up flat against a wall on the left side? Can you provide the plan for the 2nd floor?

I can see why you might not want to put the front door in the section behind the trees (but is it possible?), but do people look at the house head on, or would they be seeing it at an angle as they approach coming down the street from the right or left? Is approach from one direction more likely than the other?

I used the positioning of the front walk and landscaping to create a sense of entry for our house (coming in from several feet in front of where your garage is) where we were not able to access the house directly from the front. Don't know if that would work here

Anne

sweeby is this totally new space connecting the existing house to the garage? If so why can't you make the LR bigger (push out the back) to allow for a larger entry? And no to the sunken-they are terrible for the elderly, the young and talkative women (how do you think I know this?).

That's the bulk of the first floor Anne. There's a library and casual dining area on the top of the plan above the Great Room and Kitchen; and on the left side, there's a bathroom, pantry, mechanical area.

The current staircase is located just to the right of where the dining table is shown, rotated 90 degrees so it's accessed from the Great Room. It's very narrow (The new-construction space would be where the staircase is shown in the drawings, across the front to the garage, which is existing.

The top right corner of the drawing is our 'back yard' -- which technically, is more of a side yard. But it's heavily wooded and attractive, and with the floor-to-ceiling windows in the Great Room, we don't want to intrude on that space if at all possible.

Here's a shot of the back yard taken from the upstairs landing through the Great Room Windows:

From the back yard, that Great Room wall-o-windows looks pretty much like this (facia boards and beams are also dark gray-green now):

If the section that you enter the steps won't be covered by the door this would be your best option and to me would flow better as it separates the entry from the room some. It looks like you have plenty of space in the drawing for it to not cover the open part of the stairs, which would be my only concern. I've been in several houses where the stairs going up is right in the front of the door when you enter and that is what I visioned when I read the first post. Your drawing then cleared it up and it doesn't bother me at all. The stairs isn't a main view.

I think if you make that whole front a gallery and separating it with columns you can make it open into the living like you have it, but I would prefer the open in front of the stairs.

As far as I can see, I think Option #2 works fine! Gorgeous yard!!!

Anne

Sounds like two votes for Option #2 then --

To answer your earlier question Anne, the initial drive-up approach would always be from the left (since we're on a tiny little dead-end street), but the on-foot entry would probably be from the right since we're relocating our driveway.

I know you were primarily asking about creating a sense of entry at the doorway, but my question that you just answered was referring to the outside approach having a sense of entry. A book I found very helpful when thinking about and designing our house, is Patterns of Home by Jacobson, et al. (Most of the negative reviews on Amazon compare it to the authors' other book, A Pattern Language, which I found to be way more than I needed or wanted.)

With the rest of your surroundings being so beautiful, I'm sure you will come up with wonderful natural landscaping to direct visitors' views where you want them as they approach your house, but this book might help (it's not a landscaping book), and it's around $6 used.

Anne

I'd go with option 2.

Then, to create a sense of entry, use a different flooring on the approximately 6' x 8' beside the stairwell and set a grouping of 3 or 4 plants (at least one large one) in the living room just to the right of the front door.

It looks like your great room is tiled so maybe you could get a floor medallion or "tile rug" that coordinates with your tile but is distinctively different enough to demarcate the entry. They're not all that expensive to do and look really great.

DON'T do a drop down or raised entry. The dang things are just too dangerous. No one ever seems to notice the step. One couple I knew had an entry way that was dropped down by about 3 inches from their living area. Every single time I went to their home I almost fell and I saw a lot of other guests nearly fall as well. Everyone recommended repeatedly that they consider raising the entry way up level with the rest of the floor before someone got hurt and they got sued.

Then one day, the wife of the homeowner tripped and fell on it and broke her arm! They had been living in the house nearly twenty years by that time but she had stuff in her arms as she was going toward the front door and just momentarily forgot about the step. Down she went. Needless to say, shortly after she fell, they raised the entryway up level with the great room and repositioned their front door. Cost them a pretty penny b/c they had to completely rebuild that section of wall to raise the header on the front door - but I guess they finally got the message about how dangerous it was!

Here is a link that might be useful: One source of floor medallions and

Enter by the stairs. I'd add an entry closet and reverse the door swing.