No, you misunderstand. I'm saying don't have a door to the stairs, at least not at the top. Here is a random pic off the internet, that kinda shows what I'm talking about. You'd want the opening to the side and a small landing so people don't scoot their chair back and fall down the stairs... At the bottom of the stairs is where you'd put a door for now, then remove it when you finish the basement.Basement will be unfinished, initially, save for possibly an office area for me. Not sure how I can get rid of steps to the basement. Definitely don't have room to put another staircase elsewhere. Might be able to move basement door to hallway though.....
This eliminates needing to plan space around a door that does nothing but make for an ugly and inconvenient path to the basement while chewing up space in that room.
This is actually very similar to what I had in my old house, minus the stairs going up. Initially it had a door at the bottom, but I tore it out and widened the opening when I finished my basement. If your basement is (eventually) going to be part of the living space of the house, make it feel like that.