13. Define Bedroom

What is a bedroom? Depends on who you ask.

According to Google’s Oxford Languages:

bed·room = noun: a room for sleeping in.

Simple, until it is not.

Real world example

Let’s look at our house. Depending on how you count it, we could have two, three, four, five, six, maybe even seven bedrooms. I think we technically have four. The real estate listing said five. What’s going on?

Realtor’s Definition

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) have a code of ethics that defines a bedroom. Per Attorney’s Title Group:

According to the NAR’s code of ethics, a Realtor might consider a room a bedroom if it has two means of egress and a closet.

Curious, so would this mean that a room with a bed and an armoire is not a bedroom?

Building Code’s Definition

The Residential Building Code is a collection of rules that establish the minimum requirements for a house. In order to get a building permit for new construction, a house must meet all the requirements of the Residential Building Code.

Residential Building Codes vary slightly per jurisdiction, but most agree that a bedroom —or “sleeping room” — needs to have the following:

1. Not less than one operable emergency escape and rescue opening connected directly outside

2. Aggregate glazing area of not less than 8 percent of the floor area

3. Required heating to keep room temperature not less than 68F

4. Minimum area of not less than 70 square feet

5. Not less than 7 feet in any horizontal dimension

6. Ceiling height of not less than 7 feet (for rooms with sloped ceilings the height needs to be at least 5 feet and more than 50% of the room needs to be over 7 feet)

7. Smoke alarm in each sleeping room or loft, and outside the sleeping area in the viscinity

Interesting, a code legal bedroom does not require a door connecting it to the other rooms in the house and no mention of a closet.

Architect’s Definition

All bedrooms have to meet the building code rules, but those are minimum requirements. A 70 square foot room is very small. In a large home, a master bedroom could be six times that size, 400 square feet*. Personally, I like bedrooms on the smaller side 140 to 200 square feet. Saving the larger spaces for living space.

*According to the National Association of Home Builders report “Spaces in New Homes” by Paul Emrath from 2019 bedroom sizes vary significantly. Here are some highlights:

• Small House (under 2000 square feet)

  • Master Beroom 223 square feet

  • Other Bedrooms (total) 285 square feet

• Overall Average for All Homes

  • Master Beroom 312 square feet

  • Other Bedrooms (total) 503 square feet

• Large Homes (3,500 square feet plus)

  • Master Beroom 422 square feet

  • Other Bedrooms (total) 791 square feet

Can you have too many bedrooms?

While living on Bainbridge Island, we saw many house listings with only a few bedrooms, but also offices and dens. That seemed so odd. We discovered this has to do with septic systems. A septic system is sized based on the number of bedrooms in a house. If you have a 3-bedroom septic system, then your house might have five rooms that could in every other way be classified as a bedroom, but only three of those rooms could be used as bedrooms, for the sake of the septic system.

Final Tally

Let us revisit our house.

The listing for our house advertised: five bedrooms.

I disagree. On the main level, we have the two obvious bedrooms next to the living room. The office next to the garage also technically meets the code requirements for a bedroom. Upstairs, only of of the rooms adjacent to the playroom qualifies as a bedroom since the other room, the office, has no means of egress — aka operable window — that meets the minimum requirements.

Could you also sleep in the play room? Sure, but practically speaking, that room does not offer much privacy.

Final answer: four bedrooms.

Oh wait. Our septic system is only for 3-bedrooms.

Revised answer: three bedrooms.

It is unusual for such a large house to have so few, functional bedrooms. Our next step is to think about how we, as a family of six, would ideally want to sleep, and then figure out the fewest number of edits needed to make this plan work for us.