A thick concrete wall can keep your house cool. Steel will make your house hot unless you insulated the walls well. Insulated walls don't work very well in a flood zone. When they get wet, you need to tear them apart. You will need concrete for the foundation most likely unless you are driving steel pylons. There is probably a combination of the two that will suit your needs best. It would be helpful to know what you want to achieve by using steel. There are advantages to both. Steel floors can be cantilevered further. It is easier to make bigger window openings. Floor and roof spans can be lighter and quicker to build with steel, but the roof will get hotter and therefore need good insulation and need to be well ventilated. These are just general assumptions of certain building practices so that you know what to ask people where you live. The practices and resources vary from place to place and building something for a specific purpose can change the benefits of one material or the other. My best guess is that you will probably want to use both.

I have some suggestions if you are thinking budget friendly changes. Make a photo gallery with different size frames and arrange them parallel to the stairs, so you can enjoy each photo as you climb up. And for the area that will be on a level with your upper floor, try some pretty decal that will connect the photo gallery to upper level. And last, if you have budget add some beautiful hanging lights in the stairwell. Also think about repositioning your refrigerator.

Dear Viney, I am Ravi and I am an Architect. Designing is subjective and collaborative field which relies on many factors like context, location, lifestyle, culture, budget and more. Healthy communication and proper flow of information are quite essential part of any design process which leads us to smart and robust choices. There are infinite possibilities that can be done but to do anything we first must decide what not to do. Elegance in Design always work. I am sharing some images from one of my project where my client who believes in a simple and organized lifestyle; wanted a decent and elegant house for his small family. So I came up with doing minimal interior for him which is sophisticated and serene. He really loved it. Hope you like it too. Give me a call for further more. Thanks and Regards Ar. Ravi Prakash 8882204074 ar.ravi2013@gmail.com

Yep, I agree it's nowhere near Scandinavian. Although I tried hard to emulate it with the resources I had and conflicts with other family members, but oh well. But I'm trying to emulate the Scandinavian theme at least in the paint job. Do you think if I somehow achieved it at least in paint job it won't look good? I really like the color scheme of Scandinavian design. Edit: I really like the minimalism and coziness scandinavian design provies. Although, I do have to mention that I didn't mean to say that the photos that I've posted are necessarily scandinavian. I was just talking about the colors especially the white color.