3 That’s my magic number.

Lugging groceries, trash, dry cleaning - moving furniture in and out , strollers. Icy steps in winter concern me. Elderly parents, elderly me! Liability of potential falls from visitors.

I loathe stairs. Can you tell?

We are on a hill and have a set of 5 and then 6 to get to the main landing and then 2 more to get to the front door. They are broken up and not steep so it works fine. We have a street level entrance to the basement and garage but of course there's a flight of stairs to the main floor.

Most of the houses in our neighborhood have hills and stairs to the front. I like it because people walking on the street aren't looking right into the house.

It depends on whether there’s a secondary more level entrance. A house I loved in my neighborhood growing up was at the top of a steep hill, and had these beautiful winding stone steps (matched the architecture of the house itself). But, it also had an attached garage at the back of the house for bringing in groceries and such and a back door for older or disabled guests. Best of both worlds. Except for maybe the mailman (don’t know where the mailbox was located).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here- new house has 14 stairs straight up to house and the stairs from the garage are 8.

I feel bad for mail man, milk man etc

That's way too many OP, if you don't have a flat entrance from the back either. Hope that's not your forever home, because you will not be able to grow old there.

I wouldn’t want to walk up a flight of stairs to get to my main living room. We vetoed any home with the garage in the basement

More than three or four. If you have elderly family members, 3 or 4 could be too many.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here- new house has 14 stairs straight up to house and the stairs from the garage are 8.

I feel bad for mail man, milk man etc

Is there any other flat way into the house? Can you go around in back? It is hugely problematic is someone gets injured or your guests can't walk up 14 stairs.

This.

We have 4 steps to the front door, but the garage entrance into our house only has one step which is manageable for elderly relatives and deliveries.

Too many steps should be a deal breaker for a forever home.

Anonymous wrote:The house I grew up in had 88 winding steps to get to the front door, it totally sucked to shovel when it snowed but the house has a near panoramic view of the Long Island sound. As a 48-year-old watching what happens to old people I would not buy a house like that but I believe it has kept my parents strong and healthy.

I can’t even imagine that many! Do you have a pic?

You're building -- do you already have a lot? How much can you do about the change in elevation from the street to the front door?

There's a builder in my neighborhood who skirts the code by creating a sort of berm in the front yard so the front yard now has a hill and the front door is not as far from the highest point on land. Don't do that. It looks ridiculous (even if it does get you a nice tall ceiling in the basement without having to dig as deeply).

We have idk maybe 8? What’s great about it is that our porch and living room windows are high above the street/sidewalk for a sense of privacy. Also they’re wide, and I’ve been through stairlift installation before so I know it wouldn’t be difficult to get one. Really our narrow interior doors will be a bigger accessibility hassle.

The house I grew up in had 88 winding steps to get to the front door, it totally sucked to shovel when it snowed but the house has a near panoramic view of the Long Island sound. As a 48-year-old watching what happens to old people I would not buy a house like that but I believe it has kept my parents strong and healthy.

No set number in my head. I think we have 3, then a 5 foot landing, then another 4. The run of the steps is pretty deep and the rise is shallow so it's visually more open and easier to climb than standard stairs. I wouldn't want all the steps together or to be too steep.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here- new house has 14 stairs straight up to house and the stairs from the garage are 8.

I feel bad for mail man, milk man etc

That's way too many OP, if you don't have a flat entrance from the back either. Hope that's not your forever home, because you will not be able to grow old there.

This. We just passed on an otherwise perfect house that we definitely would have bid on at the price listed, because it had 18 steep steps between street and front door, and no driveway or other flat entrance. No way my parents or inlaws would be able to get in. We couldn't do it. I'm still disappointed because it would have been great otherwise, but it was a dealbreaker.

Stairs in the front are fine imo but ideally you have an entry with fewer/none in the back and if you don’t, think through what it would take to put in a ramp or a stairlift should someone in your family need one for a period of time.

Stairlifts are not hard to install so it might not be a big deal.

Make sure the trash cans are easy to roll to the curb.

You can put a mailbox down lower. Is there a basement garage?

Op here- yes we have a flat back yard that we would be able to use in case of an injury.