Wow, way to revive a thread that is almost 8 months old. Alisonn, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you are referring to my posting regarding split foyer homes. As I've been living in mine for almost 5 months I will tell the OP (as I did before) that this home works wonderfully for my living situation and business. If it works for her, she should go for it. There is NO other home layout that would have worked for me within my budget. Several real estate agents have asked to see the interior of our home since it was finished because they had heard through the grapevine that it was an interesting and unusual layout...every single one has fallen in love with it as I have. If I am the person you were referring to I was not "offended" by anyone's opinion that I would not be able to make a profit of the resale. In fact the majority of the thread had very little to with talk of resale and much more to do with certain individuals' personal dislike of that house style. I WAS annoyed by a poster or two trying to tell me that they knew my lifestyle better than I did when they insisted that a split foyer would not work for me or insisting that I was heartless if I did not build a handicap accessible home. But nowhere in my thread did I imply that I was offended by people's opinions of the resale value of my home. I readily admitted that I was not a real estate expert by any means but that there were plenty of split foyers in my area that seem to sell just fine as it's a fairly common house design around here. Personally, I hate cookie cutter McMansions. I'm also not a fan of town houses, studio apartments, mobile homes, yurts, or log cabins. But there are people who love all of those and happily choose to live in them. And to each his own. Where does it say that a split foyer is the least desirable home? I'm fairly sure that there are homes that many would consider much less desirable than a split foyer. And again, if you're not referring to me, I sincerely apologize...but considering my original post regarding building a split foyer is the one that comes up when you search for split levels I'm fairly sure you're referring to me. I do resent having someone reference me and my situation incorrectly. This post was edited by sparkler39 on Sun, Jan 26, 14 at 2:15

wearybuilder, thank you for your post and rec. I feel as you do about the houses of this style feeling closed in. I live in a suburb that was mostly created in the late 60's and early 70's so there are many, many split entries. Even though I realize they are not very desired, the fact is that they exist in an EXCELLENT school district and often on yummy lots. When building, in the case of my style, they crammed 5 bedrooms and 2.5 baths to make the house SOUND big, but the bedrooms are really small and the bathrooms were so tiny they were barely functional. We have already combined a miniscule full bath, a teensy master powder room and small walk-in closet to make one large main bathroom. With a window! What is it about these houses that the bathrooms don't get windows?? The little "nursery" next to the master is now our closet. Effectively, we turned the three bedroom 1.5 bath upstairs into a 2 bedroom 1 bath, but it is so_much_better. Downstairs, the two bedrooms on the "garden" level, we are making sure they get more closet space and more windows. In the end, it will be a "smaller" house but I think it will feel and flow much better. Now if we can just find a way to make the outside more attractive :-) Can't wait to open up the stairs! Joanna

@mama goose_gw zn6OH I do want all drawer bases, and I completely understand their utility (Ikea has so many awesome ones in their example kitchens!), but I wanted the clean lines of the slab doors, plus the expense of all drawers is significantly higher, and that concerns me. I did consider making the one under the sink a pullout. My compromise, thus far, was to do slab fronts and add pull-outs to the inside. I have an interior pullout drawer in the cabinet by the range and it serves me well. My earlier layout does keep with the same plumbing, though I'm not averse to changing it, if I can afford it. Part of the consideration for the layout was to keep the existing boxes for the cabinets, veneer them, and replace the bottom of the cabinet in the sink box. I think (by my estimate) it would save me around $1500 on those wall/base boxes, excluding installation. I still need to find a pro to give me real estimates, though. I made simplified versions of your plans in Ikea (takes a lot longer in sketchup). I like the corner one, though I lose a lot of storage cabinets. I can't get myself to like the plain Galley-Style kitchen. I'm not sure what bugs me about it. I do want a hutch-style, if I can, because we are big tea drinkers (boba, hot & cold) and I'd love a "tea station." That was the reason for the spot on the left in my earlier post.

A runner is the fastest, easiest, cheapest option. Sadly you have 4 different finishes inside of one stairway. You have dark stained hardwood at the top. You have natural oak for the stairs, you have outdated tile on the landing and then more oak going down and then you have brown laminate at the bottom. Without changing ALL the surfaces in the stair well (and don't forget banister and trim...and all the horrible fiddly stuff surrounding this area) you will still have +++ mismatch no matter what you do. If refinishing the treads are out of your budget, then pretty much every other option is out as well. A colour matched runner (either a nice brown that matches the two "wood" surfaces or something like sisal with a brown binding on the edges) on both sets of stairs AND a MATCHING AREA RUG on the LANDING (the carpet company can custom cut and bind the same carpet used on the stairs to create a custom area rug). Done and done. In essence you will be camouflaging the "mismatch" as much as possible. The actual surfaces won't change, you will just cover them up as much as possible. Personally I would work with a natural sisal runner with brown trim. This will tie in the gold tones of the wood work (banister, stringers, etc) with brown stain of the hardwood/laminate. Or you change out EVERYTHING to get a match to the hardwood upstairs (you won't find a match to the laminate unless you have 15 boxes left over). And that is already out of your budget.