Which floor should the bedroom be on?
If you're planning a house or a renovation and nobody has asked this question yet, ask it now, before anything is drawn. It's the one decision in a whole project that costs nothing on a drawing and a second renovation afterward, and most people don't know it's a decision. They put the bedrooms upstairs because that's where bedrooms go.
Here's why it matters, what the answer usually is, and what to do if the bedroom has to stay where it is.
A flight of stairs is part of the bedroom
If your bedroom is upstairs, every trip to bed, every trip back down for the thing you forgot, every trip to the bathroom at night if the bathroom is on a different floor, includes a flight of stairs. On a good day that's nothing. On a bad day it's the thing you plan around. You go up once and you stay up, or you sleep on the couch and tell yourself it's temporary.
People who've lived with this for a while know exactly what I mean. People who haven't yet are the ones this post is for, because the moment to decide is before the drawing is approved, and that moment usually passes without anyone noticing it.
The answer, most of the time
A bedroom and a full bathroom on the floor you enter the house on. Not the primary bedroom necessarily. One bedroom, with a bathroom that has a shower, on the same level as the front door, or the door you actually use.
That means on a bad week you can live on one floor: sleep, wash, eat and get out of the house without a stair. Everyone else can keep the upstairs. The house works for a body that's changed without looking like it was planned around one.
If you're building or gutting, that's a line on the plan, and it costs nothing more than any other arrangement of the same rooms. If the layout doesn't allow it, this is the moment to find out, while the layout can still change.
Why it closes so early
Where the bedrooms go decides where the bathrooms go, which decides where the plumbing goes, which decides where the walls go. Once the drawing is approved, moving a bedroom to another floor means redrawing the plumbing, and once the plumbing is in, it means tearing it out. It's the first decision in the project because everything else sits on top of it.
That's also why it's the decision people most regret. A bathroom that could have had a bench, a door that could have been wider, those are fixable at a price. A bedroom on the wrong floor is a second renovation or a move.
If the bedroom has to stay upstairs
Then the questions change, and they're still worth asking early:
Is there a full bathroom on that floor? If not, that's the decision to make now, because a bathroom on the same floor as the bed is most of what a downstairs bedroom gives you.
Can the stairs be made easier? A rail on both sides, at a height your hand lands on. Light at the top and bottom, on a switch you can reach from both. Treads you can see the edge of. None of this needs a permit and all of it is cheaper before the stair is finished.
Is there room for a lift later? A stair lift needs a straight run and a plug at the top or bottom. A through-floor lift needs a space that lines up on both floors. You don't have to install either. You have to leave the space, and the electrician can run a wire to it while the walls are open for a few dollars (PRACTICE).
Is there a room downstairs that could become a bedroom one day? An office, a dining room you don't use, a den. If there's a bathroom near it, or the plumbing to add one, note it now. It's the cheapest fallback in the house.
What to say
To your architect, before anything is drawn:
"I want one bedroom and a full bathroom with a shower on the entry level. Show me where they could go."
If the answer is that they can't, ask what it would take, and get the number. Sometimes it's a small change to the plan. Sometimes it's a real cost, and then you're deciding with the number in front of you instead of finding it out later.
The list this belongs to
Which floor the bedroom is on is the first item in the first stage of the free guide, The Decisions Your Renovation Makes Without You, because it's the first thing that closes. The rest of the guide is what closes after it, in order. Short, large print. Sign up and the download is yours.
