I would put a gate at the bottom that you could attach to the wall and wrap around and attach to the side of the stairs. There are some with pieces that could round the corner like this: http://www.amazon.com/KidCo-G80-Configure-Gate/dp/B000056HMX/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1265913885&sr=1-18

Then, I would put a handrail low enough for your child to use when using the stairs to encourage them to keep towards the wall. If you are with the child every time going up and down, just remind them to use the rail (and use it yourself) and it could become habit. Also, don't forget to put a gate at the top of the stairwell.

Maybe you could install a temporary wall. Maybe out plywood, painted white or a bright color, with like 3" diameter holes drilled randomly or on a grid along the border of the stairs. The top could be rounded or wavy and would only have to be as tall as you think necessary. of course you will want to make it sturdy. Then you can just get a simple baby gate. I know you like the open feel of your stairs but they just look like a bad accident waiting to happen.

I think this is a strong case of having to fall-proof your kid since you might not be able to make the stairs completely baby-proof. Of course you can't leave it just as it is, but let your kid explore the stairs (supervised) so that he can develop the skills to be safe. You'd be surprised how quickly little crawlers and walkers can learn to tackle stairs.

What about installing curtains that you could tie or velcro closed? If you want to keep an airy look, you could use mosquito netting or cheesecloth. Just make sure your installation hardware is rock solid and can withstand tugging.

I agree with Maevers about the handrail and the gate.

Hi! Here in New Zealand you can buy wire fire guards that wrap around 3 sides or be straightened right out. I think they are meant for gas heaters? We found ours at the local department store for around $30 (NZ). It is about a metre high, and you can attach it to the wall with eyelet screws, it would then wrap around the corner of the stairs and prevent baby from crawling up from the sides.
Let me know if you want me to take a pic of it to show you what i mean.

Yikes, as a soon-to-be adoptive parent I was just thinking how this staircase would have caused the social worker doing our home study to have a conniption fit! I do think you have to wall off the bottom completely to prevent your baby from climbing before s/he is completely steady. (And even then it looks dangerous.) Even with a handrail, one stagger and s/he could slide right over the side. Maybe there is some kind of plexiglass sheathing that you could bolt to the exposed side?

I had this same problem. On the second step I had a banister post added and then I had a place to put the baby gate between the wall and the banister. If you are handy and can cut your own to length it's really inexpensive. I had someone come insatall one for me and it really wasn't that expensive. He did it in such a way that I can have it removed when the gate come down. It's does not beling where it is but I just had to work around that fact for a few years.

Just gate off the bottom and top step and make sure you don't leave any chance for that baby to wonder on it alone. It's tricky because my son is 2 and knows how to walk on stairs just fine, but he could just as easily slip or tumble backwards, and without a wall there he would just go flying over the edge.
I think you might have to not worry about it being an eye-sore because you should really consider creating some sort of second wall there.

Could you use a long standing screen (one of the pretty Asian looking ones or a carved one)? You could wrap it around and use eyehooks or something to secure it temporarily.

I mostly agree with gorlitsa---Place several big floor pillows down below the stairs along the wall as well and proceed to teach and help your pre-walker/toddler/child up and down the stairs. They will figure it out. It's the vistitors in your house you have to worry about.

I have the same problem w/two staircases and burnttoast is right- I mostly worried about visitors to the house. On one of the staircases w/had to build a rail (that we will remove later) because we felt it was too dangerous (a child could potentially drop a whole floor) and we left the other staircase as is.

Here's another idea for a wraparound gate. One Step Ahead has some pretty ingenious gadgets- so maybe there's another one I missed that would work even better. Good luck!

http://www.leapsandbounds.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=5805&parentCategoryId=85183&cmSource=Top_Rated_85183

I like the idea of using plywood to create a custom wall against the steps. Plywood is cheap, easy to work with, and can be carved (like the wavy top idea, cool!) and painted. You could make something pretty cool with plywood.

we have a similar setup, although there is a rail, but it's speedrail and two cables, so the child can easily hurtle themselves through. With each child, we just remind them every. single. time. that we don't play on the stairs, and they HAVE to wait for us if they want to climb up. With both kids, it took about 4 months of saying, "play on the floor please" 30 times a day to have them finally stay off or wait for us.

Supervision is the key. Yes, it takes more effort than just blocking things off, but it's worth if for us.

Plywood or MDF wall along the bottom section of the stairs. It gives me the shivers just looking at it! And certainly, it's not to current code.

I grew up with a ladder to the top floor and was just fine -- teach your kid to navigate the stairs and supervise, supervise, supervise. You could also invest in some bouldering mats and lay them down below the drop for a few months, just in case.

I completely disagree with the people who suggest letting your baby figure it out. I have two children who both grew up with stairs , and even though I always let them practice climbing them, it is extremely dangerous if your baby makes her/his way up 5 steps when you are putting a few dishes away. Children die falling down stairs. Babies, especially crawlers under 1 1/2 years can not be taught to use the stairs. We used a retractable gate on our stairs so it disappeared when I wanted it to -http://www.amazon.com/Lascal-5-12320-1-Retractable-Safety-Openings/dp/B001QD7IM8/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1265982803&sr=8-4. You could wrap an extra long one around the base.

If you're in this place for the long run, I might consider saving up for a rail. My inner six year old just looks at that setup and sees the most perfect place for a flying leap onto the sofa.

First, you need something to stop them from going up and down unattended (gate at top, one of the wraparound ones at bottom, we liked the mesh retractable variety so that it could hide when baby was asleep and we had grownups over) while they are in crawler mode. This way you can relax while cooking dinner, peeing, etc.

The entire stair landing and area needs to be a parent-supervised ONLY area. Make it impossible for them to access alone.

Second, you need a railing on the wall side. You can get this and install this yourself at Home Depot. Very, very easy. You should also consider tying rope from top of that rail up around the top post, so they have uninterrupted thing to hold as they navigate that corner. Any, YOU need this to hold when carrying a squirmy toddler. They get quite hard to hold...you should not be carrying a child up and down now with no rail.

We removed gates at about 19 months as our daughter was stair-capable. With your setup, I'd keep them up much, much longer so that stairs are restricted and rules are reinforced longer, but as long as gates keep the child off there while unattended, and you teach them the proper way to go when attended, when they are 3 or 4 you can remove gates and they will behave as they have been taught.

Note, we have firm stair rules: no running, no playing, no holding more than 1 toy in free hand, no tossing things up or down, hold railing or hand...and just this week her Gram said "I'm going to run up and get..." and she corrected her, "No Gram, we WALK on the stairs."

Going forward to kid stage, I'd worry less about the stairs and more about that unprotected landing. That part scares me since it's transitional space and kids need a minute to react to new space and the rules. If you spend any money, I'd say do it to make that landing safer and leave the stairs as is.

doesn't look completely safe for adults either

... can you simply afford a giant hospital bill? the stress of living with a disabled child? being sued by a house guest who wipes out on that?

jeeze. pay for a rail in installments if you have to.

I'm actually a psych prof. who studies motor development in children and have written a paper on how and when children learn to climb stairs. I don't have a suggestion any different from the ones already offered above re. gates/rails, but I do want to correct the errors that some have posted about when children are ready. Its simply not true that children can't learn stairs until they 18 mos. Most children have learned to come down by the time they are 13 or 14 months, earlier for going up - and that includes the children without stairs in their homes. Children who have the opportunity to practice, learn earlier.

While pretty, I would definitely install some sort of temporary wall there (plywood or railing). It's not the bottom or the top of the stairs only that worries me, it's the opening all on the side.

We have stairs in our home that have a railing and a wall, and it STILL scares me.

Please disregard any opinions to just let them figure it out. They will figure stairs out, but kids get rowdy or trip sometimes...even once they're completely steady.

I'm pretty sure that handrails are requirements in most standard building code. Budgetary and aesthetic constraints aside, you need to close the side of the staircase for the reasons highlighted by applesnkids. If you want to maintain the sense of openness and great light then you can construct a railing with openings large enough to let though light but not toddlers. A quick search for "loft staircase" should turn up a ton of visual examples. If you find that you can't make anything beautiful within your budget then make something safe for now and pretty it up once you have the resources.

I'm surprised that you passed home inspection. We had to install a hand rail for 4 stairs after a landing that continued up the stairs that were all enclosed in order to obtain home owners insurance. All I can say is good luck. Our kids can handle our stairs now but we have the same rules as mentioned above and although we have removed our gates we still have a pop in gate here for when friends are over who have little ones over since you'll need to keep them safe as well. Even though your child will learn how to use the steps safely you'll still need to consider your guests and their little ones.

What's more important, how nice it looks, or the safety of your child? Yes, a rail will be expensive, but kids are expensive, and you're going to come up against large bills all the time--outfitting the nursery, outfitting the toddler and big kid room, car seats, nursery school...if the choice is a dead or disabled child or a construction bill you have to pay off over time, pay it off. As someone else said, that stair is going to be a danger for a long time, not just to your toddler. If it's there, a kid will jump off it. Take it from someone who used to jump off the garage roof as a kid, and who fell out of a lot of trees. Besides, do you think you're invulnerable? That you'll never trip on the stairs or slip on an errant toy or a sock? I hope you wont, but you never know. And if it does happen, a rail could save you too.

A lot depends on the structure you have around it that you could tie into. For instance, we had an open staircase in our house like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/miket/2539032735/

And I built a railing that ties into a beam above and the stairs themselves for support:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/miket/2539070361/

The key was getting a good strong newel post at the bottom. If you could get that in place, you could put a baby gate across the bottom for ease of access, and then find something to wall off the side (or use plexiglass panels to create a railing). If you can't afford to make it beautiful, you might have to live with ugly for a while until you can. Better ugly and safe than beautiful and dangerous.

I would definitely add a couple of railings to the inside edge, including one at kid height. You can get a plain round railing at a home center for about $40 that would fit your aesthetic pretty well, or you could use a hardwood 1x4 mounted on edge with eased edges (simple, not terribly expensive, and quite modern).

Agreed with when children can learn to climb stairs. The standardized assessments of developmental skills put crawling up a few stairs at roughly the same time as standing and taking a few steps. And as the other commenter mentioned, these tests are standardized in terms of what the average child can figure out without practice; kids who don't have stairs at home can do this just from having crawled up onto boxes and stools and things. The ones who have stairs at home are going to be even more fluid with it.

I would get something like this: http://www.onestepahead.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=5804

Depending on space, you could maybe put it around the stairs with a couple feet of floor room in front of the first step, so most adults could step over onto flat ground.

Beia is the voice of reason. Yes, you do have to consider guests, the elderly, etc. but 'teaching' your child about not playing on steps is not the answer. The open look can be achieved with the use of plexiglass and there are plenty of websites with pictures and ideas. It is a more contemporary look and not inexpensive, but the safety aspect trumps all. If I had a house with nothing on the sides of the staircase (even without children!) I'd be a nervous wreck. Steps are treacherous. If an adult very used to those open steps were to accidentally trip because of a shoe malfunction they could easily tumble out the side. Baby gate at the top, baby gate at the bottom and add back the railing or a wall! I know someone whose wife actually died falling off a stairway while carrying a basket of laundry, for heaven's sake.