@ RL Relocation LLC - No problem. You are right, the orb pendant that I bought initially was entirely too big! It was 23" and made my stairs look VERY narrow. I thought it would look good... but was wrong. The stairs are not wide by any means, but they are not as narrow as they appeared with that photo. I still think when I stand at the top of the stairs and look down, it appears wider in person than it does in photos. I'm not able to get a good angle to make it look wider. Anyway, I've returned that orb and purchased a 12" lantern (saving about $300 also, I might add!) and just from holding it up, I think it will look great. The renderings I've posted are of other lanterns for sale on HOUZZ, and are not exactly to scale... but just to get a feel for what it will look like, I used that feature that allows you to "show in your room". This project has come to a pause with the holidays, but hopefully we can get the drywall, paint, and lighting finished up within a couple of weeks.

Traditionally you 'match' the floor that is in the public areas...that is to say the main living/entertainment of the home. If everyone and their dog hangs out in the basement and you entertain in the basement and you serve formal or semiformal dinners in the basement, then match the basement flooring. If you have a traditional house with a stair case that is visible (open...not a closed door at the top of the stairs) from the main living space then you match the stairs to the main living space. Basement flooring can be stand-alone.

We had the stair designer come by today, and it was a great meeting. I think the last time he was here we caught him on a bad day but this time he was really helpful, taking the time to answer all my questions and walk me through the design logic behind various aspects of his drawing. It helped that I came prepared with a better understanding of stair ergonomics and code thanks to those who have taken the time to share their thoughts with me on this thread. The end result is that we have made some minor tweaks and improvements to the plan, I'm getting what I want out of it, and I understand exactly why each of the various choices have been made. Key highlights: 1. We are doing away with the top 20" landing which @res2architect and @3onthetree objected to, and converting upper stairs to four equal 11.25" deep steps. The stairs will begin right when you open the door from the kitchen, but that door opens in to the kitchen (i.e. does not swing over the stairs) and in any case we plan to remove it in a few years once we're done the toddler phase and just have an open doorway there. I thought the point about the odd stride pattern from kitchen to backyard was an important one, especially as that's where we'll come in and out of the backyard, often carrying dishes and food to bbq and so on. The upper portion of the stairs are also the piece that guests will use the most so it will be good to minimize the quirks there. 2. We are going to have the stair railings built to be removable -- @Sandra Guistwhite sort of what you were suggesting (thanks, that was thoughtful). Not hinged or anything, just something that can be unbolted and taken off if we ever need to bring a sofa through or replace the washing machine, or if we really need much wider access to the under-stairs area for a project. 3. We are going to place the bottom newel post on the second step up from the lower landing and begin the handrail there to allow slightly better access to the under-stair area. This (and only this) part of the design is in fact a deviation from contemporary Ontario building code but since we don't have an inspector coming in we can get away with it, and I can see from some googling that it's a pretty common design that doesn't seem particularly risky. In fact, I only realized today this is how our other main staircase is designed, and my parent's staircase is the same, so I presume it was the norm in a previous era. At the end of it all, I think we'll have stairs which would alarm many Houzzers who are accustomed to a different type of housing stock and set of codes, but which will be relatively safe and work well for our needs and our quirky space. The stair designer told me today that he's done several sets of stairs in our immediate neighbourhood and designs like this are very often necessary. It turns out lots of people are putting in winder steps in high end contemporary renovations around here out of necessity. I do want to thank everyone who took the time to think about this and share their comments, even if the main thrust of many of them was "wow, you are/ your house is insane". I'll be sure to come back and post a photo when it's all done so you can see how it's turned out, even if it does end up horrifying some of you. I have a thick skin and can take it, and I do feel confident we're proceeding with the plan that's right for us and our house. I'm excited to see this come together!

@lavender12145 Oh - I looked at your post from September about crown molding question & saw what I thought is these stairs & so guessed that room was your basement! But, my thought on carpet for these stairs you’re showing us doesn’t change - I’d still use a color close to the marble flooring the stairs lead to & reduce the amount of pattern on the carpet.