When you are designing a new home, your attention will be focused on how you can maximise the floor space and create a home that is ideally suited to your lifestyle. How you arrange those rooms will depend on many factors. You might prefer an open plan approach to maximise the light and sense of space within the building, or you could value the opportunity to create separate adult and child areas to provide more privacy or the opportunity for adults to work uninterrupted while the younger members of the family play. If your home includes more than one level, then one thing that you must think about is what type of staircase would be best.

Does the staircase matter?

You might consider your staircase to not be the most essential part of the building. It's true that you won't spend as much time climbing up and down the staircase as you will sitting in the other rooms, but the staircase is still a hugely visible part of your home. You are likely to spend a lot of time looking at the staircase even if you aren't using it. It will often be the first feature that people notice when they enter your home and is frequently visible from the main living room. Selecting the right style of staircase impacts how your property is perceived by others. A solid, traditional staircase will create a very different atmosphere to a modern glass and steel staircase, for example.  

Which material should you choose?

Your chosen staircase builder will have plenty of ideas for materials you can incorporate into your staircase. Your decision will depend on the style of the decor in the rest of your home as well as the ambience you are trying to create. If you are trying to increase the amount of light flowing through your rooms, then using a lot of glass will help with that. If tradition and solidity are what you are aiming for, then dark woods could be a perfect choice. Your staircase builder will be able to show you what is possible with different types of wood as well as steel, glass and even concrete. They will take you through possible designs for open and closed staircases and different treads, spindles and banister rails. By looking at examples of their past work, you should be able to get a clear idea of the sort of staircase design that could work in your home.