I've got a 1905 home and have been adding new mortise locksets on the new interior doors - I know the hunt to find the right hardware. There are two companies that make high quality interior mortise locksets that I've found - Nostalgic Warehouse is one and the other is Emtek. Both brands are carried at House of Antique Harware online. Rejuvention (http://www.rejuvenation.com/) also sells one of the brands - I believe the NostalgicWarehouse ones - and you can customize for interior privacy, dummy, etc and choose finish, knob, locking type (latch, key) backplate. But the price reflects that ($150-ish per set). Some other sites carry the Nostalgic Warehouse hardware and you should search for that online once you figure out what backplate style you need at a cheaper price. For bathrooms, I prefer the latch type without the keyhole, it's easier than inserting a skeleton key. In the end -- $100+ for each set was cost prohibitive for me since I'm doing a complete remodel and an addition so continued searching and lucked out finding the "Prime Line" series at Homedepot.com at around $30 a set. Yes, there is a difference in quality, but it's what I could afford at the moment so it's worked ok so far. They are all skeleton keys and I've got the keys hanging on the knobs with ribbon like others have mentioned. Here's a picture of my new doors and the Prime Line set with my Dad testing it after he mortised it out. This post was edited by kjo_tx on Thu, Jul 11, 13 at 10:53

Cheril and Roseabbey: Thanks for the pictures. Both your doors look terrific as well. Sue36 and oceanna: We don't have to leave the door open but wanted to have it more open to the finished basement so it feels part of the living space, especially when folks are actually down there. jlc712: We thought the same thing about having the door swing in, but it is indeed against code to have a door open over a staircase. We went online last night and found a nice split french door available special order from Home Depot. We are going to take our measurements in and see if it may work. Then the open door would still block the hallway but not as much. We are still weighing our options but I think we are leaning towards keeping a glass door on versus taking the doorframe out and just wrapping with drywall. Most of the open staircases are wider and our's is just a normal 32 inch door opening. Again everyone's input has been so helpful.

I would want that glass top system somewhat higher from the ground level. A snow fall of any extent would have to be brushed off and then the area around the stairs cleared so that when the glass top is lifted, the edge snow doesn't fall into the stairway. A heavy overnight snow might limit egress or make it impossible until the snow is dealt with from above. The glass top idea looks good, but one should make sure it is still good when it becomes a done deal and reality intrudes.

A single door can pocket into a 2x4 wall. Additional doors will each require at least 1-3/8" each plus room to bypass each other, so the wall would need to be 4-1/2" + 1-3/8" + 1-3/8" or something over 7" thick to accommodate triple bypass doors