Privacy Is Important in Your Home. Here’s How to Maintain It

 

Imagine you like to go to bed early – and get up early – but the teenage kids prefer to stay up later and inevitably wake you up when they go to bed. Or you work nights and need to sleep during the day, but the kids make noise playing in their bedrooms or going from room to room. You need privacy and need to be separate from those secondary bedrooms.

There are two main ways to group bedrooms when constructing homes. In one way, all of the bedrooms (including the master) are grouped in one home area.

In the other (the split bedroom layout), things are a little bit more spread out.

 

What Is a Split Bedroom Layout?

In split bedroom house plans, the master suite is separated from the other sleeping areas instead of right next door. This occurs in contemporary interpretations of traditional house styles.

In strictly traditional houses, the home’s master bedroom might typically be in the same part of the house as the other bedrooms, either grouped on the first floor as in a Ranch style home or grouped on the upper floor in two-story homes.

You’ll often notice groupings like this when you tour historic houses or if you plan on purchasing a home in areas of the country with a large number of older homes, like New England.

There are plenty of ways to “split” the bedrooms in a home; however, even with homes with four bedrooms or more, there are still just two main ways to split a house. This depends on how many stories there are in the house that you want to create. In a one-story house, you put the master on one side and secondary bedrooms on the other, separated by living space. You put the master on the first floor and the secondary bedrooms on the upper floor in a two-story house.

 

1-Story: Master Bedroom on the Opposite Side of the House

If you plan to build a one-story home, then your floor plan will tend to look similar to this:

 

This is the most common layout for homes that have only one story.

By placing the master suite on the opposite side of the house from the other bedrooms, homebuilders can ensure that the master suite still feels private. This is especially true even if the home’s square footage is on the small side.

Because the master is set apart (often by the living and dining areas), the home has the illusion of more space and therefore feels more practical.

 

2-Story: Master on Main

If the home you want to build will be two or more stories, however, then it’s likely that you will be looking at having the master suite on the main level, separated from other bedrooms on the upper level, as in the following floor plan.

 

This is the most popular setup for multiple-story homes because the master suite remains very accessible from the eating and living areas of a home; due to its location away from where the rest of those in the home sleep, it also remains very private.

This idea works well for four-bedroom house plans because the “stacked” concept of the main sleeping spaces allows for multiple bedrooms to access great amenities, like natural light from the sunrise in the mornings or a great view of mountains and other landscape vistas.

 

Six Reasons Why You Should Consider a Split Bedroom Layout

There are many reasons why more and more future homeowners choose to build their dream homes in the split bedroom style.

Here are just six of our favorites:

 

1. More Privacy

It’s simple: if you want a four-bedroom home (or even one with three!), your children will likely inhabit the other bedrooms in the house.

If your children are grown up already, or you haven’t started a family yet, then those rooms will still likely be filled with visiting friends and family.

Because of this, most modern house plans choose to separate the master suite from the rest of the bedrooms so that mom and dad (or grandma and grandpa!) can enjoy a little bit of privacy away from the rest of the family (or their guests).

 

It’s always easier to relax when you truly have your own space. Homes with a split bedroom layout make this significantly easier because you don’t always have to hear the pitter-patter of little feet, blasting music, or even your brother-in-law snoring when he visits for the holidays.

 

2. Better Work/Life Balance

Keeping work and home life separate is important but can often be difficult. This is especially true if you have a home office.

Most folks who work from home prefer to have their commute a little bit longer than three steps away from their bed. It doesn’t matter if you work completely from home or use your space for personal projects – this is true for everyone.

Having space completely dedicated to productivity makes you, well, more productive.

When the master suite is in a completely different home area, many homeowners find it easier to dedicate themselves completely to their projects and relax when the workday is over.

 

3. Larger Feeling

Homes with split bedroom layouts tend to use floor space more efficiently than homes with grouped bedrooms. This is because large or multiple hallways are not always necessary in these home design plans.

Why’s that?

Because instead of a hallway, a living room or a kitchen can separate the two sleeping “zones” instead.

Without the need for these hallways, homes with split bedrooms can allot square footage to the home’s living areas. These bigger rooms usually mean higher overall value for the home.

And, even if the split bedroom home has the same square footage as a “grouped bedroom” home, the split bedroom home will still feel larger because of the illusion of space created by removing a harsh divider, such as a hallway.

 

4. Multiple En Suites

Often, when all the bedrooms in one home are grouped, there will be a shared bathroom in the hallway instead of an en suite for each room.

Any master bedroom floor plans that DON’T has an en suite included are immediately binned for most modern homeowners. This is because the level of comfort and privacy that comes with an en suite bathroom (especially for the homeowners) has come to be expected.

With the split bedroom concept, the square footage saved by nixing clunky hallways can be reallocated to spacious walk-in closets and larger bathrooms.

It even provides an opportunity for guest or children’s bedrooms to have en suites, perhaps linking two of the bedrooms in a larger home.

 

5. More Creative Floor Plans

When you don’t have to group all of the bedrooms in a home, you really have a lot more freedom in how you will end up designing your home.

We’ve already touched on this a little bit, but separating the various sleeping spaces in a home can do many things for you.

Here are just a few of them:

• Allows you to use a second or third bedroom as a home office, gym, or creative space
• Have larger, more inviting living and eating areas
• Creates the illusion of square footage through a more open floor plan
• It gives you more flexibility on en suite and closet features
• Allows you to work around lot-specific features, like a mountain view or natural light in the morning

 

6. More Desirable

When you build your dream home, the plan is usually to stay in it forever. After all, you’ve poured your heart into it!

However, plans often change. Because of this, when building, you need to consider at least somewhat the types of features a future buyer might be interested in.

So, we offer you this advice: a home with a split bedroom layout may sell for more than a home with all of the bedrooms grouped – and is generally more desirable.

This is mainly due to the reasons listed here! Buyers can know that their lifestyle changes can be easily accommodated – that is, when the master suite sits away from the rest of the rooms, it’s easier for buyers to imagine them as a nursery, office, or home gym – with minimal disruption to their sleep.

 

If you’re looking for a home with more privacy, more livability, and more functionality, you’re looking for a split-bedroom-layout home. It’ll be home with plenty of space, as well as one that can seem significantly larger than its declared square footage.