Suero accidentally got two copies of the first floor and no second floor so here is your second floor... Then, my comments are below. re your dilemmas: 1) Friends of mine have a direct-vent two-sided gas fireplace on the wall between their great room and outdoor covered patio. It is the kind with a single firebox that you can see thru. It seems to work fine for them but we're in a warm area of the country so the fireplace is really pretty much for decorative purposes only. Well, on cool winter evenings they may turn it on occasionally to add a little warmth out on the patio but it doesn't have to be terribly efficient. Nor do they have to worry much about heat loss thru the glass when the fireplace is turned off. I would imagine that with the burners off, the fireplace it has about the same insulating R-factor as a double pane window. Personally, if I had your situation, I'd probably go this route rather than worry that my fireplace would take up too much of my screened porch space. Besides, with the old fashioned Franklin stove kind of thing, you also have to worry about people bumping into the stove so that when it the stove is hot, you have to leave a fairly good amount of "safety zone" space around it - leaving you even less usable porch space. 2) Re getting furniture up and down the back staircase, my main (and only) staircase is 4ft wide with U-turn in the middle AND an L turn two steps from the bottom. I haven't had any particular trouble getting furniture upstairs. Mine is an "open stairwell". (i.e. no wall down the middle or along one side... just railings) I'm not sure how wide you staircase is but it looks like the same size as mine so I don't think you'll have any real trouble getting furniture up/down it either. That said, I too LOVE the elegance of a beautiful staircase visible from the main living area! And, if that main staircase has been just about the only thing your DH has requested, I agree you ought to accomodate him! He's agreeing to y'all spending the money for an absolutely gorgeous house - and I assume he'll be helping to pay for it - so it is only fair that he have some say! LOL! But, I too think that that having the back staircase visible from the bottom of the main staircase might seem a bit odd. I'd hate to see you have to redesign the entire upstairs tho. So, I asked myself, "is there any possible way to hide the second staircase so that both sets of stairs aren't visible from the front hallway?" And that led me to the idea of flipping the two legs of the back staircase so that the bottom of the stairs is tucked out of sight directly BEHIND the main staircase. What you would see at the end of the hall would be the door to the stairs leading to the basement. (I ASSUME you do plan to have a door there!) This would also mean that the steps up to your office would go straight up - with a landing in the middle - instead of that jog left then right. Then, to further hide the back staircase, put a wall across the downstairs hallway just about even with the edge of the dining room. Put in a pretty set of double 24" wide doors that can be left open most of the time for ease of traffic flow but closed when you have company so that the back staircase is hidden completely. Or, if you don't want to mess with double doors, even an arched opening would create a visual break and help hide the back stairs. Like this: Even if you decide not to flip the staircase, a wall across the hallway with a set of double doors or an arched opening would help. Besides, with a long hallway, it is nice to have a visual break anyway. Helps avoid a "bowling alley" hallway effect. 3) I think having an 8 ft front door without a transom will be fine! The only other door visible from the front of your house is the one on the service entry and you want the front door to stand out and be different from that secondary door anyway.

I can't tell very well from the picture. But there are gas fireplaces that use powder coated stainless steel or porcelain coated stainless to get something close to this look.

I am new to this forum but hoping someone can help me out. I am building a new home in the SF Bay Area and have an exterior courtyard outside my family room. I had spec'ed an indoor/outdoor gas fireplace for this space thinking that such a thing should be easy enough to customize. It's just a view-thru two-sided fireplace right? No such luck! Heat-n-Glo makes a unit that is designed for indoor/outdoor use but other two-sided fireplaces are indoor only. The only problem is that the Heat-n-Glo is a bit small and it's very traditional. I was looking for a linear, modern burner. I've called a number of manufacturers and spoken to a number of fireplace showrooms and no one can help me. Does anyone here have any design ideas, models recommendations or custom shops they can recommend? Many thanks!

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