Optimal size bedrooms

Gday, still at design stage with my house, has anyone decided opn an "optimal size" for bedrooms, especially children(who then grow into teenagers!) I got back designs but their rooms were only 3.2X 3.4(plus BIR) but when i measured it on ground it seems really small!!

My master bedroom is 4.5 x 4.6, not including Ensuite (about 2.9 x 2.9) & WIR (about 1.6x 2.9).

I walked on the slab the other day and I find it's really small!!

Maybe I can't visualize it well without walls and stuffs. Hopefully it'll be bigger than what I perceived!

Yes it often can SEEM small when we measure it out. I often see a slab poured and think "what.... you could hardly swing a cat in that area"! It seems to be a kind of illusion as you don't have the normal frame of reference. I am very conscious of actual sizes or rooms, as I must work out quotes for cleaning carpets. There are all sorts of homes. Some compact and others very spacious. But if I were to summarise, I'd say in the average family home, a main bedroom would be at least 15 sq/m and usually up to 25 sq/m. In large homes, there may be similar sized second bedrooms, but in most cases, other bedrooms would be about 12-13 sq/m.

The room you said is 3.2 x 3.4m comes to 10.88 sq/m. That's a bit smaller than average. Of course more room is nice to have, but every extra sq/m of a house will cost more to build, and to paint, fit floor-coverings etc.

I think for bedrooms other than main bedroom, its best to have a nominal width of 3.65m. (This allows for full width carpets or floorcoverings with minimal wastage. Then the length can be as much as you can make it. If I were planning, I'd make it about 4.2m long. This would be a nice size of 15.33sq/m. But of course, it depends on how the overall floorplan works, and where you need more room.

Cheers!

Ash.

Pfft....yet another reason to have floorboards....

floor boreds

Just picturing driving thru a new estate somewhere and all the people standing on their slabs frantically swinging cats around.

There's something wrong with me isnt there .

Not at all!

Well they have a use after all....

I`ve looked at alot of home designs and the avg standard for bedrooms 2-4 is 3.0 by 3.0.
Main beds are in the 4 by 5 or 6 range. I`ve seen a few 2.7 by 2.8 or 2.9 rooms and it`s tiny.
Something in the 3.5 or 3.6 range is pretty common though.

Yes there are some houses (mostly lower cost homes) with bedrooms well under 9sq/m. They make a few rooms like that and can call it a 4 bedroom house, when the total floor area may have been better divided up into three decent sized bedrooms. But it IS a 4 bedroom house!

Ash, just a heads up, the link in your sig doesn't go anywhere

Not stalking, just saw you mentioned somewhere the other day in a carpet/flooring thread and that you were in perth and clicked...

Our 3 and 4th bedroom are a little over 3x3m with that space including double door BIR. It feels pretty small. When you open the doors on the robe it feels even smaller!! I wish I had of added sliding doors on the robes at the design stage.

Sounds around average, definitely not small when comparing to most current plans. You'll fit a double or a queen bedroom suite in that for when they are older. It's not so much the size, but a combination of size and window/door placement so that furniture can be placed easily. We have one minor bedroom that is 3 x 3.6 but due to window door placement, can really only fit a queen and bedsides. Another bedroom is 3.3 x 3.4 and due to pacement of windows and doors can fit a queen bedroom suite (including tall boy.)



3.65 x 4.2 for minor bedrooms? Pretty unrealistic in the current housing climate unless it's a custom build and $$$$ and size isn't an issue. If kids have to use their bedrooms as their play area as well, then size is more important, but if they are purely for sleeping, then the space is definitely better used somewhere else.

Our master is 4.5 x 4.5 and it is huge. We have a massive furniture - king size bed, two oversized bedside tables plus a huge double chest of drawers and there are oodles of room left. In fact we also have a giant cradle at the foot of our bed at present which still doesn't impede.

Our minor rooms are all 3.5 x 3.5 and again this is a good sized room. We chose to have sliding doors on the robes so as to cut down on the impact an open door can have.

Our bedrooms are the exact same size as Kytons....with WIR in all of them.

My current house is a bit on the small side and my master bedroom is 3.3 x 3.1 (internal) and thats big enough for a queen and 2 bedside tables. Personally I think much bigger than that is a waste for minor bedrooms, I think my new place has the 2 minor bedrooms (with the robes external under the eaves) about 3.5 x 3.5 and the master a bit bigger at 4.5 x 4.5 which I reckon is near enough spot on - but others may have differing needs than I do.

Our 3 other bedrooms not including ours is 3x4 and I think thats quite large

I'm building at the moment and the 3 minor bedrooms are 3x3.8, 2.9x3.8, and 2.7x4.0. I'm a little concerned about the 2.7x4.0 (which will be the guest room) becaue of the layout, but the other two for my two boys I think will be plenty big enough (they look big with double beds in them in the display home). There is also an activity room between the two boys rooms.

You make some good points there Joles, and others' input as well.

The original question was "what are optimal sizes" so I offered what I think is optimal. Sure, it may be unrealistic, but it is optimal!

And although some may choose other floorcoverings than carpets, a nominal width of 3.65m makes a lot of sense. Whether its a length of 2.7m, 4.2m, more or less, having that width is a good standard.


Ash.