My experience watching older relatives has been that when they are no longer able to negotiate stairs, other aspects of living in a large family home are also taxing. We have a 2nd floor master, and my plan is that if we are permanently unable to climb the stairs, we will move to a home that is a better fit for that stage of life. Probably something that is one story and requires little or no exterior maintenance. I don't know anyone who has remained in the home where they raised their kids through retirement, and those who delayed moving often ended up moving in unpleasant circumstances (i.e. selling a home after years of struggling with it once a hospitalization brought a younger family member in to make the hard decision). I'm sure some people manage to stay in their family home forever, but it is uncommon among people I know.

There are different types of these windows. I have an about sixty-year old Colonial center divided, foyer, dining room to the north, living room to the south and the foyer is open with a curved staircase going up. It would be horrible without the window that is above the door and every window and the door is evenly spaced across the front outside. The window has held the same as the others. It can be dusted with an extension on the inside and washed with windex on the hose on the outside. it lets wonderful light into the house and because of the lace panels I have privacy upstairs on the landing and if it is dirty it is not so noticeable because of the light filtering lace panels. On the other hand, there is a house in my neighborhood that is on the newer side, not colonial, where the architect put a window over the front door for no mathematical reason, it looked odd, and as you drove past you could see every move the family made because it wasn't as high as mine and because it was so low you could see that it was dirty, which I suppose was more noticeable because there was no window covering even ever so light of one. Well, interestingly enough, a few years went by and they took out the window and replaced it with the same wood the house is built of. So Anglophilia is right in one respect...there is a distinctly special place for those windows! My problem is my windows are regular double hung so they match those on the outside and I think the breeze would be lovely upstairs, but I cannot open them because they are too high and I very well can't be carrying an extension ladder in every time I wanted to open and shut them.

"... planning to bring the drive up as high as possible now, though ... we don't want it so high that it starts to block that lower-level window on the left." Your problem with getting good feedback is going to be that you're starting this process without properly introducing people to the surrounding site. We have only a snippet of information ... more or less a theoretical house front. Not a complete front yard or a driveway or even a good picture that shows the land/house relationship. As it is, every solution offered is already limited by your own preconceived notions, which limit what you show us. We've been here before and didn't come to a conclusion that you got excited. The set-up now is little different. Whatever you do architecturally, outside of changing the main entrance to the basement floor, will make no difference insofar as solving the problem, which has not yet been clearly identified (the path from parking-to-front-door problem.) No one can investigate how changing the approach to the house might work toward solving your problem. Most other threads on the forum seem to reach a more or less successful conclusion because they involve a little planting or a simple problem. Here, the problem is much more complex, but the base information is threadbare. Like a newspaper that starts with the front page headlines, and then goes to article titles, and then on to elaboration of details, is how you should be presenting information. We should see the whole front yard at a distance, some sequential pictures that show the present approach, some wide span scenes (from slightly overlapping pictures) that show the area from at least 2, or maybe three different points of view, since there is topography involved. (Each point of view should be a complete scene ... not a disconnected picture.) A landscape architect could not assess and explore the issue with so little information to go on. I'm not trying to be a downer about your thread or issue, but trying to say if you want to be happy when you leave, you've got to produce enough information to work with.

just do the stringers only and leave the baseboards. Or continue w/the black or white on the baseboards too. ( look at my last picture. they continued w/the dark color for the baseboards) the condition of the baseboard wood is kind of yucky as is, so unless you want to refinish all of that too, I'd paint it. then for you slat panel wall in front of the stair landing, I'd give that a good cleaning, sanding and coat w/a good colored wood oil. something like Penofin. warm it up a bit and give it some life. that would nice w/the black stringers. do the same for the treads if you like. Penofin is a great product. i'd also look into redoing the railing in a cable system. that would look cool w/the black and the wood