Hi all

Would love any ideas/feedback on what to do with our stairwell.

We have recently brought a house which needs a lot of work. The 5/10 year plan is to either rebuild or do a major renovation. In the interim we'd like to give it a small (low budget) refresh and make a few things safer as we have small children. We are struggling with what to do with the stairwell, specifically the stairwell void which is is 'L' shape with a balustrade.

- The stairwell & void cut into the lounge at the front of the house - a key living area.

- The balustrade is currently too low. We would need to add at least 200mm to make it to code, however as the stairwell void is in front of a window I think it will look weird with a 200mm balustrade visible through the window. And with young children I'm don't know how comfortable we are with keeping the void with a partial wall balustrade that could be climbed over, even if the height was increased.

- Almost half of the stairwell void is under a window, the main window in the lounge (which happens to have a small ocean view), so we don't wait to do anything to interrupt with the view

- We've thought about changing the 'L' shape to wall off a section (see rough mock up) but not sure if this will work...

Would love any thoughts/ideas? I'm not sure if there is a perfect solution given that we don't want to spend a lot on this interim solution but hopefully we can do something better and safer that what we currently have.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!