MBR

Partitioning the balcony

The MBR is small which is ok. Unfortunately it is also rather dark have windows on only 1 side of the room. Half of the windowed side is taken up by the bathroom. We tried to let a little more light into the bathroom by knocking out a relatively large window. 

Functionally, it was sensible to partition the balcony into a separate study so that one person could work there while the other person was sleeping. The downside is that the partition result in slightly reduced light levels.

During the daytime, the MBR won't be an activity room anyway and activities can be done in other rooms with more windows. The fact that the MBR is small becomes an asset as the MBR becomes a room dedicated to resting/sleeping. 

One difficulty in design was how to situate a king-sized bed and wardrobe and what to do about the obviousness of the bathroom door in such a small room. Basically, size limited the possible layouts and none were truly optimal.

Move the door to the right!

Our relative who is an architect had the solution for the wardrobe: move the door to allow for a wardrobe on the left side of the wall. Previously, the door was on the left edge of the room which limited furniture options on the wall. This is something that we never thought of, perhaps feeling ourselves constrained to design according to the physical limitations of the room. Good lesson. Wonder how much the bill for moving the door will be though...

The next issue was the bathroom door, and this was solved by a sliding pocket door. We have seen an example in a friend's home and our friend remarked that the use of a pocket door took something like 6 inches of room space. I think ours uses slightly less, but I think is a useful feature with a certain symmetry since the balcony study is also accessed through a sliding door with the same laminate finish.

Lighting Scheme

The MBR area is light by 2 x T5 cove lighting on one edge which is directly above the bed and therefore cannot be seen by anyone lying on the bed. It is supplemented by 3 x 13w PLC downlights illuminating the wardrobe. On each side of the bed there is an IKEA ceiling lighting fixture with a shade to be chosen. We picked this option since it allows us to change lampshades for variety.