Tiny house living is a great way to save money and learn how to maximize space in your home. But we are also aware after being in the tiny for 8 month now - that having a smaller home means that we have limited space (obviously!).
Prior to having our tiny home - when we looked online or watched netflix shows about families living tiny - a lot of the bedrooms were upstairs in the lofts. But, having a main floor bedroom was a non-negotiable for us when moving into a tiny house for many reasons. I’m going over why it was a non-negotiable for us and some things you may want to consider if you’re going tiny!
I call it our "ensuite", but really you walk through our bathroom to the main floor bedroom. What's handy? The staircase leading up to the main floor bedroom in our tiny house has STORAGE! I store towels, extra toilet paper in there. It's the perfect amount of space to act as a linen closet! If you look behind me in this photo - there's room to walk on the side of the bed and the large windows make the views spectacular!
Privacy
Bedrooms that are built in a loft in tiny homes don’t often have doors or are covered by “slates” or bookshelves to act as closets. Our main floor bedroom in the tiny house provides not only privacy but a quiet place we can close the door and watch movies without bothering the kids in their lofts!
It is nice to be able to close the door throughout the day to enjoy a ‘small’ space that’s entirely ours.
A space to work from home in
According to McKinsey & Company’s American Opportunity Survey, 58% of the 25,000 workers they polled said that they were able to work from home at least one day of the week. And I’ve been working from home since 2016! Although my business has shifted from teaching pilates in my basement to running a full time marketing agency - it means I need a spot to take calls!
Having the main floor bedroom means I can easily stand up to take calls, look out the huge windows to see the kids playing outside, but also when I’m in there and the door is closed the kids know - moms on a call.
Proper storage space for clothing
We knew from seeing tiny house videos that clothing in a loft was always tucked away somewhere. Living on the mountain full time means we often have to shift from work attire to “we need to go outside and shovel, garden” or basically get dirty attire! I wanted a place to hang clothing and not just tuck them in a bucket in a loft. The closets were important to me so having the main floor bedroom gives us that - it feels exactly like a BEDROOM for us!
Mobility
Standing up and getting into a bedroom at almost 40 was important to me. I didn’t want to have to climb a ladder or tuck my head under something to go to sleep. I wanted to stand up, get changed, crawl into bed…and with a main floor bedroom in a tiny house you can do that. If you have a loft - it’s almost a guarantee you’re climbing a ladder, and the loft at most will be 4ft tall - which is okay for the kids, but as an adult I couldnt see myself doing it.
The second thing for us - we knew we were going to Airbnb the tiny for awhile - so if we had lofts ONLY that would leave out a lot of potential guests who did have limited mobility - we wanted to be able to rent it out to people who would be more comfortable with a main floor bedroom.
Image source HERE.
Space for a baby
Neil and I have often talked about having another baby, although we weren’t building the main floor bedroom for this reason, now that we have it we can visualize space for another baby. Although it would be tight in a tiny house with 3 kids - we could do it!
The "Feel" of having a bedroom
Having the headspace and length to place a full size mattress into the bedroom makes it feel like we have an abundance of extra room in a 400sq ft home. It’s true –call me crazy but having a queen sized bed, bedframe and a side table = the main floor bedroom in the tiny house just doesn’t feel like a tiny bedroom at all! We have everything we need in that bedroom.
Image Source HERE
Some questions to consider about a main floor bedroom in a tiny house:
- Ask yourself if you care about mobility and changing in a loft - if it doesn’t bother you you can definitely get a smaller tiny house and save even more money
- Guest spaces - having the main floor bedroom means there’s likely a spot on the sofa or another area of your tiny to have a guest. If having guests visit is important - think about if you should have a main floor bedroom or not!
- Could you get a murphy bed and have the main floor bedroom act as an office/ play room AND bedroom? We opted out of this - I knew I would not pull a bed up and down throughout the day and it would likely just stay down.
- Is it important to you to have a “bedroom”? For some people having a bedroom won’t matter - it was important for us to have one.
Mainfloor Bedrooms we're loving
Image source HERE.
