Master Bedroom Is 1337

Something odd about the way some houses are designed. I thought of it not too long ago when I was first looking into moving into a shared house maybe, to get away from my family. One place listed on Craig’s List was like this shared 5-bedroom house. For a moment, I wondered that it might have been the house I lived in between the ages of 10 and 18. Nah, it wasn’t, but it got me thinking. What if that house were a shared house instead of a family house like it was for us?

Well, wouldn’t work so well, or at least would need some major remodeling first. In a shared house, usually each bedroom would be similar enough, maybe the master bedroom would be different in that it has its own bathroom and a bigger closet. In my old house? Four of the bedrooms were roughly the same size, and were used as my room, my sister’s room, the guest room, and the computer room. Bathroom was in the middle of the hallway. Then there was the master bedroom, my parents’ room. It was HUGE! Could fit all the other rooms combined in that one room! Contained a little “sitting room” area, then some steps up to the bedroom spot, HUGE closet, and HUGE bathroom.

So what if it were a shared house? That would be quite unfair. Everyone else gets the meager rooms and meager closets, while one tenant might get that enormous room that practically has its own zip code, with acres of closet space, and a big ass fancy bathroom.

Maybe that room doesn’t get rented then. Take the door off and call it the upstairs living room with an extra upstairs bathroom, and maybe the closet could be a shared closet or, hell, anything else, since it’s practically a small room on its own. Well, no, wouldn’t work. There’s no door to the bathroom. Just an archway. The tiny room with the toilet has a little door at least, but the shower and bathtub (separate) are just sitting out. Of course, could be remedied by just putting some double doors where the archway is, perhaps.

But, anyway, it’s amazing it is even necessary. With the four other bedrooms, there could be four people having to share that one little full bathroom, or more with room-sharing, while just the two parents, or even one parent, gets that enormous room and enormous bathroom. What do they need all that for? Shouldn’t the other rooms be bigger? Shouldn’t the common bathroom be the huge one? Or maybe every bedroom should have its own attached bathroom?

The house we lived in before that one, from when I was 6 weeks to 10 years old, was a 3-bedroom townhouse. The master bedroom was just slightly bigger than the other rooms, and the attached bathroom was no bigger or fancier than the regular one in the hallway. And, hell, I was the one with the biggest closet, hehe.

I mean, okay, I can understand the master bedroom being slightly bigger and having its own private bathroom. That makes sense. It is made for rooming two people, a couple, and thus a bit more space and a private bathroom and perhaps more closet space would be necessary. But then, only enough for the two people! Not one that can fit like ten people! What, so the parents can feel like they’re in some private suite where they can forget their kids exist? Seriously, back at college, some of the dorms were in these little trailers behind the dining hall, and each trailer housed ten people, each with individual rooms and two bathrooms on one end. I’ll bet one of those could fit comfortably in the gigantic room my parents used to have. Hell, I think their room alone made up about a quarter, if not a third, of the entire house!

And, hell, the other rooms weren’t that bad. But just the blatant disparity in size and amenities between the master bedroom and the others is just amazing. I’m not saying they have to be exactly equal, but damn. Just so the parents can feel like they’ve got something so much greater than the kids have. And because families are apparently the only ones worth living in the house.