I assume you could drywall it but I think I would have it drywalled to the height of the top of the railing.with trim on top. Not complete privacy, but would afford some from the ground level in that room.

That's an option! I was hoping for total privacy but I am concerned about it being too dark up there.

Wouldn’t closing bedroom doors offer enough privacy?

If that's going to be the noisy room with the TV, I think drywalling a halfwall makes a lot of sense. You keep the light open feel, but (hopefully) block some of the noise. And you'd have half privacy. :P

Drywall to a certain height (to give visual privacy) with glass above?

@bossyvossy I think maybe I don't mean privacy, I'm more worried about the noise. Our kids go to bed around 7 and we often have friends over for dinner, or just hang out and watch TV after that, and I'm hoping to have some sound separation for the kids. When they get older they'll be walking from the bathroom and whatnot so I feel like a wall might just make it more of their own space.

@Fori @Lezlie Cooper Is there a particular advantage to a half wall that I'm missing?

A GC will tell you if this is possible, but that hall off the bedrooms will be very narrow and very dark. I think you bought the wrong house for your family's needs....

I would put up a wall. My aunt had a layout like this. If there was company in the living room everybody seen you parade on the cat walk in your robe heading to the bathroom. Sometime when her kids were little they forgot the robe. lol

You said it right, no worries. However, they won’t be going to bed at 7 forever. Probably an hour later each year. Would be easier and cheaper to play and talk in lower tones.

You can also try going in the bedroom and closing door. Then have spouse and friend play music and talk, as a test. You might not be as loud as you think, making this remodel unnecessary.

@Anglophilia I have to disagree. It's in a great location on 5 acres and is definitely our forever home. We could be perfectly happy and not change a thing, this is really just an annoyance.

@functionthenlook Exactly my worry! Did your aunt wall it in? Was it too dark?

@bossyvossy that's an idea!

I would drywall, but put windows all along the upper part of new wall. This will provide both sound reduction and a “naked as a jay bird walking to bathroom” visual barrier but still let light pass through.

Sounds like you have a lovely new home, enjoy!

@Rai Kai @decoenthusiaste Thank you! I'm not opposed to windows, just having a hard time finding a photo of something I love. The home is pretty traditional cape cod and I don't want to do anything too outside of that aesthetic, but I am nervous about fully closing in that hallway.

Amy B No she never did wall it up. They had a huge gameroom and split it to a bed and bath for the boys. Boys are the ones who tend to streek. Most halls are on the interior of the home and are naturally dark . Usually the only light they get is from the open bedroom doors.

@functionthenlook Yes!! My little guy loves to get back to nature haha! I'm wondering if I could do a full wall but only to the first bedroom door. So that part would be windowless (like most hallways) but it wouldn't be as long.

It’s been a while since I had little kids and bedtime rules, but I’d be surprised if a 12 YO goes to bed at 7pm. I do recall that when my SS were teens, they closed their doors at 10-11 but stayed on the phone or playing music til I don’t know how late. I was exhausted by 10p so wasnt aware until next day when it was IMPOSSIBLE to wake them up for schools. Good times....

OP concern is to secure uninterrupted sleep for the little ones, not sleep curfews, which I assure will be harder and harder to enforce with time. I painted a broad sketch for discussion purposes, not issuing parenting dictums.

Nice space! I would think walling the lower portion of the wall would be enough to break the sight lines. Whether or not it will look intentional and not like an afterthought might be questionable. I love the wall posted by decoenthousiaste. You potentially could do a 60" tall wall and leave the top open.

You would need framing and that would reduce the width of the hallway. This might turn your hallway into more of a corridor which is not a desirable feature in a home.

I don't like the half wall idea. It adds nothing. For extra sound protection, you could consider better bedroom doors, and maybe add QuietRock on the inside bedroom walls.

Your home looks very nice. My recommendation would be to move in and enjoy and gain some experience over time on the layout.

Could the bedroom doors be improved instead? Are they currently solid wood? Could you insulate the bedroom walls with sound dampening materials? I would not close in that upstairs at all. It's amazing!

as the owner of a vacation home that is similar, a half wall isnt going to do what you want.

"if it were me" i would have the hallway widened a bit (cantliviered) if you think it is going to be tight and closed off... it would result in a slight bump out into the main space instead of what would be called in other dilemmas 'this big boring wall' which you could hang really large beautiful art on. a slice of glass at the very top would be stellar.

have a meeting with a reputable HVAC company to understand if/how your heating and a/c might be impacted by making the corridor a separate space.

question: i can tell this is a stretched real estate photo. how stretched is it? (no bedroom doors are that wide, nor light fixtures oval). when you look at the room, and the photo, do they bear any resemblance to each other? or is this really a much smaller space than pictured?

OP here! Thank you all so much for your responses so far! Lots of great thoughts. I personally don't care for the vaulted living room/balcony/catwalk trend, so it's good to know that it's a desirable feature to future buyers, if someday down the road we did want to sell.

@Bri Bosh, we haven't used white noise in a while (our kids are 4 and 2, not in cribs) but would totally use it (that and replacing the doors with solid wood, which is a great suggestion).

@bossyvossy I hear you! My kids are 2 and 4 so we will definitely flex the bedtime as they get older. My oldest just learned to read and will turn on her little light after we put her to bed (just like I did) and stay up. I'm not a real stickler about things like that. Just would like it to be closed off so they can have quiet, privacy to and from the bathroom, and so that I don't have to worry about our voices sounding like we're right outside their doors.

@zsmith Yes, I like that photo too! I'm not sure it's in line with the architecture of the home, but I bet a contractor/architect could tell me.

@strategery Thanks! I'm leaning away from the half wall idea and I do worry about the hallway being too narrow. I wonder if just closing it to where the bedrooms stop would look weird?

@hiccup4 They are hollow, which is so weird because the downstairs doors are all solid. We'd definitely replace them.

@ninigret GREAT suggestion about the HVAC. I didn't even consider that. We have a half-wall staircase in a 2-story great room in our house currently (I can't seem to escape them, ha!) and the stairway gets much, much hotter than the upstairs or downstairs. Thank you for saying that!

Confession time, and I know this is going to sound totally crazy, but I've never actually been inside the house. We are military, and that makes us 1, not picky about our living space, and 2, unable to travel to house hunt unless we want to fork out $$$ for travel and lodging. We are separating from active duty and moving home, so we are familiar enough with the area to send my parents to look and bought the house via Face Time. So, I have no idea how stretched the photo is or the dimensions of the space! It's a 3100 sqft home and you are looking at the entirety of the upstairs, if that's any help? We love the house, and it's location, and have moved enough times to make my head spin so I really would love to not do it again. I like the idea of a closed in hallway, maybe with some board and batten and pretty lighting to brighten it, but also appreciate the other ideas as well. Keep 'em coming, especially if anyone has actually done this before!

Thank you for your service. I think with solid doors the kids will sleep soundly. Don't train them so they need absolute quiet when they sleep. They will thank you for this when they are in college.

Really nice space. If it were just looks alone, I'd not enclose the balcony.

If you were to close off that balcony, even with a half wall, your ceiling fan -- your overhead light for the downstairs room -- will be obviously off center. Addressing that issue will increase the cost of your project but not addressing that issue will likely make you very dissatisfied with the result.

If you're really wanting privacy for the upstairs enough to consider closing it off at all, consider extending the floor of the existing balcony to meet a new ceiling created for the downstairs as you close it off entirely: add closet/cabinet doors where the railing is now located with the end result including adding some odd shaped storage behind them, with the back of that storage affixed to the new left slope of the vaulted ceiling downstairs -- necessary to create a new center point for the vaulted ceiling in the downstairs room.

i'd say its a pretty good candidate to buy 'sight unseen', very clean and trim looking.

I would live in it for 6 months before you do anything. We were going to change our kitchen before we moved in. It got put off and we are now starting a year later. It is a MUCH better plan than what we had originally because we have the benefit of having lived in the house before finalizing the changes.

Hi! Did you ever find a solution to walling off the balcony? If so, could you please provide any advice? I am in a similar situation. Thank you!

I am curious what you ended up doing. We are in exactly the same boat....

We're in a similar situation with three young kids and a vaulted family room with balcony overlook. The sound travels like crazy and I wish the upstairs had more privacy. I also have been told that the spindles on our railing are not the strongest so I also worry about it from a safety standpoint. Would love to know if you came up with a solution you like.

One of our spindles came out! Our kids are told never to go near it! Just another reason for a change.

HU-270887589 - oh no that's terrible! Okay, that scares me even more! The spindles are already not to current code and spaced too far apart.

Came across this post while googling this exact dilemma. We are in a similar situation in a home built in late 90s with the waaaay too open concept trend.

We have lived in the home with children for 5+ years so have first hand experience and benefit of hindsight. It sucks!

Not only is this a sound and privacy issue, it is an energy and HVAC efficiency issue. If you have a separate upstairs AC, you have all that wasted space for your sytem to try to cool, more area for hot air to rise, etc.

Our upstairs AC cant keep up in hot Texas summer months, and HVAC professionals have cited this as a primary reason.

Curious to know what @decoenthusiaste ended up doing! We are planning to evntually replace with full walls.

Replace that dome light and put in 2-3 nice canned lights along the hallway with some good parobolic bulbs and it will be a well lit hallway. Could even install motion sensor switches etc.

The stairway is still open to give it some open-ness, so that is no different than how most homes are designed from the get-go.

Enclose and use solar tubes in hallway for natural light