Llyfia -- I raised my kids in single level, split level and two-story homes and they all work. When your kids are babies, it's nice to have their bedrooms nearby but monitors provide similar surveillance when bedrooms are separated. Personally, I think it's a big advantage for parents to have some separation from the kids so they can be intimate or have an argument without explaining what's going on. I wouldn't worry too much about sneaky teens. Chances are you'll be asleep in bed hours before your teens are so it won't really matter. And if they're hellbent on sneaking out, they'll find a way to do it. Regardless of which style home you choose, one feature I strongly recommend is a second living area. It can be a play room when kids are little, and a hang-out room when they're older. It will save your sanity when they're noisy, boisterous teens who enjoy watching things blow up on TV with their friends eating you out of house and home. Sounds like you have a beautiful piece of property. Rather than start with the style of the house at the outset, why not let the land dictate the style? That will allow you to focus more on function, light, views, indoor/outdoor access, etc. I'm sure your architect/designer can help guide that process. Good luck on your project!

The stairs should be considered part of the 'public' areas. That means they should match/compliment the downstairs area (the place with the entrance, the living/dining space, etc) where guests come in and move around. Traditionally 'upstairs' would mean private space such as bedrooms. The upstairs areas are welcome to have different flooring from downstairs. That's not a problem. You are welcome to work with treads that are 2-3 steps darker than your downstairs flooring and then paint the risers. This is a very handsome look that will show off both the stairs and the down stairs flooring. If you are lucky, you will be able to pick a stain/finish that is complimentary to BOTH floor colours. Of course, a stairway that has been designed for carpet has a different set up than one designed for rigid flooring. You will need to be careful with how the finishing carpenter finishes the stairs.

I feel your pain! With our kitchen under construction, some of our kitchen contents are in the basement; the rest is in the dining room. Since we have 2 coat closets that are sort of part of the kitchen, all of our coats are piled on a bed upstairs (like we’ve been having a party for the last two months, haha). The new cabinets are parked in our sitting room. The new things I’ve bought, including some plates and cabinet hardware, are piled in my office. When we first moved in here, the floors on the first floor definitely needed refinishing, but the second floor I thought looked fine. We decided to just have the whole house done, though, because I knew what a PITA it would be to have them done later! Think of it as a good opportunity for fall cleaning and purging!

Time to choose stain samples. The upstairs has four different types of wood, so that’s fun. We’re thinking Early American for the downstairs office to try to match the current pine floors (photo 1). Anyone prefer Special Walnut, Provincial or 50 Provincial / 50 Neutral? Upstairs, 3 of the bedrooms have a very red (cherry?) wood so early American didn’t look very good (photo 4). The other bedroom has a mix of woods (photo 3) and the stairs are red oak (no pic). We’ve been advised that a darker stain might work better given everything going on so we’ve been looking at either Provincial, 50 Provincial / 50 Neutral, or 33 Jacobean / 33 Provincial / 33 Neutral. Anyone have a preference between those three? Using water based poly in Satin finish.