Eliminate single stepdowns -- with ramps?

My wife and several friends have tripped on curbs, a single step down between rooms, and in shopping for a new home, we keep having to nix choices because they have a single step between living room and dining, or at the threshold, or elsewhere -- all recipes for disastrous falls -- and a barrier to possible wheelchairs in our future.

I know we can buy aluminum ramps designed for wheelchair access, but they're ugly -- and sometimes the step extends the full width of a room, so the possibility of a misstep remains.

Has anyone discovered or invented a reasonably unobtrusive, attractive and relatively inexpensive solution? In some cases, I suppose a new floating floor at the same level would work-- but how expensive is that? A full-room-width ramp could take up a lot of floor space if we held to the 1 inch drop per 12 inches standard.

A railing everywhere but at the best place to step down might draw enough subtle attention to be effective - although it defeats the open-space look we like.

Have you used any of these successfully (or not so -- cautionary tales are useful too!) -- or have any other ideas?

Welcome to the site. I think your best bet is to raise the floor, I would be looking at places that might need a new floor anyway where you might get a discount for that anyway.
If you go that route, watch the height of the bottom of the windows, there is a min height where the glass should be safety glass.

Not sure but I think the new height will want to be at least 18" from the floor.

I don’t know why so many homes have these step problems but I also never liked them. Often in new construction even the design intent is to have a one step down sunken living or dining room as a design feature. They might look nice to some but really are not practical. Then there are the additions and such that with poor planning leave these partial steps even worse.

We had such a slight step between the kitchen and the living room caused by an addition about 80 years ago that may have been done correctly but then layers of sub floors and such left a small 1.5” mismatch. I managed to get it down closer but then was laying my own floating floor in the kitchen and came up again to a little over an inch. The living room has a chestnut T&G floor and what I did was make a threshold that was extra wide that extended into the living room about 6” from white oak and was tapered down to 1/4 “ and then rounded over. The contrast in wood colors really helps and when we have guests over no one has ever tripped but I have been asked if that was the original threshold as it looks old.

I know that’s a slight gap compared to what you are talking about and I have seen a couple threads here over the years where people filled the drop floors in to make them level. That’s really best if you have a full step down. Factor the cost into your offer if you are buying a house. Or do as you are and passing on them. If a house is perfect in every way except a dropped room the cost of changing that isn’t going to be huge.

Welcome to the site.