Master Bedroom Idea
I got a little wrapped-up in the Green subject for the last 3 blogs, but I am now ready to return to the dreaming and imagining side of things that are fun to ponder.
Several weeks ago, one of my sales staff came to me and asked essentially, “Have you ever thought about designing a master bedroom that overcomes the problem of a loudly snoring spouse?”
I had one of those bright lights go on over my head as I suddenly realized that this problem is one that has been around for centuries and it seems everyone has either had this situation or knows someone who has it. I always say that great home designers should be aiming at solving everyday human challenges through better design. Once I heard the problem brought to my attention, it just seemed so obvious that IF this could be solved through some unique new room or materials design, I wanted to be the first to find the solution.
The more I thought about it, I see it as more of a separation based idea. That is to say, there are times when even the most loving of relationships, need to , or WANT to have some sleeping privacy. I know that when my wife Jacquie can’t sleep, she turns on her bedside reading light . To help mask the light from waking me, (it still does, but I keep quiet about it) Jacquie puts a pillow between my head and the headboard so as to be a mini pillow wall. I also know that no matter how bright the light may ever get from her reading, I don’t want to get to the point where we sleep in separate rooms. At times, Jacquie goes to bed first and I stay up to do design work. Jacquie often calls me to bed and wants me to do my design work in bed so she can sleep better. I guess having your spouse next to you has been seen as a comforting thing, mentally.
I may wake up in the middle of the night and decide to turn on the television at our foot of the bed. The light and noise I know must bother Jacquie to some extent but she does not complain.
I stay up late, so I usually wake up later than Jacquie. She usually gets up very early, so she tries to not wake me by turning on the lights in the bed area. It would be nice to have that bit of privacy to allow her to do “her things“, while I do my bedime “things“. I remember my grandparents built a new luxury home in the early 70’s, and they built separate bedrooms with a bathroom between the rooms. This struck me as odd and I hoped when I got married, I would not get to the point where my wife and I had separate bedrooms. My Grandpa snored.
As with most of lives little delemmas, such as needing more space for groceries, then creating the huge walk-in pantry, like wanting a porch where you could sit on it without bugs, then creating the hide-away , roll screens, like wanting to paint a front door less, and creating the fiberglass door, I know solutions can be found to about anything. This one was/is tougher than most becuase it is taking two people who are relaxing together and separating them into privacy WITHOUT moving one into a separate room . As with any creative problem solving technique, after the main problem is identified, I move to brainstorming. I throw out everything that is trapping me into conventional “boxes” and norms and try to re-think the whole thing as if I was the first person to ever design a bedroom. What would this bedroom have to look like IF I were to have one double bed that needed to instantly have a “wall” put through the middle of the bed to create two separated beds in two different rooms.
Let’s explore the possibilities. What if, for example, we could make a remote controled bed, that , as soon as one semi-asleep spouse was awoken by a snoring spouse, a” magic button” could be pushed on the headboard. The bed would then deparate on wheels and motor itself into another near-by attached room and the door would then close automatically? This is an example of a “blue-sky” idea that puts many realities aside for the moment and just takes wild ideas to see if those ideas will either work, can be refined, or will lead to another idea. If this idea can not lead to any of that, the idea is dismissed and at least we now know that this one path is a dead end.
Let’s look at the problems with this solution as well as the possibilities found in this solution.
* The idea of finding an existing electronic gizmo/device to motorize the bed, is not commonly available. If it was, it would not be inexpensive.
* If we could make the bed be motorized, WHERE would it travel too? Building an extra bedroom off of the master bedroom is in fact not solving the issues of keeping the spouses together.
* The cost of building extra square footage onto a home is the opposite direction of where housing needs to go to economize construction costs and home size.
* This idea DOES do one important thing that is desirable. When one spouse is semi-sleeping and is awoken by snoring, if the annoyed spouse is forced to wake up and phisically move to another room, this can awake the “moving” spouse. The best solution would be one where neither spouse needs to become fully awoken or needs to get up. This solution requires neither spouse to get out of bed to solve the problem. Technology has solved the problem for them through good design, and technical innovations.
The next step is to therefore imagine NOT needing a separate room to move the bed into. This means not needing to make the bed separate and travel away. What other directions could we make the bed move into in order to separate it and not make the room much bigger?
We could use existing elevator technology and when a spouse wants to get away from the snorer and not move or awaken themselves fully, they could push a button and the bed could move up into a loft area in the attic , or lowered into the basement.
Either elevating up or down is simply too expensive and potentially dangerous if the semi-sleeping spouse were to awake while being elevated. So, moving the bed up or down is likely a viable technical solution, but not safe or practical. This solution does however, not require adding too much extra space, so this solution , while not the answer, is at least closer than the automated traveling bed solution.
Continuing to think of all the ways a bed could move and not take up too much extra space, it occurred to me that the bed could pivot apart. Essentially, one bed could hinge away from the other and a wall of some sort could drop from the ceiling or come up out of the floor.
This idea now ignites another concept. What if the bed were NOT to move at all, but rather the bed(s) were 2 twin beds which at first glance, looked like a huge king-sized bed. There would only need to be about 2 or 3 inches of separation between them for a panel, or wall to drop from the cieling and separate the one big bed, into 2 separated beds.
IF a wall or panel was to drop out of the ceiling, this could maybe be done using some existing type of garage door technology. The effect however again, could be dangerous to semi-awake spouses who may roll into the path of the dropping panel. If the panel were to arise out of the floor, the same situation of danger (not to mention the contraption getting in the way of the bed blankets) would be present. Neither a rising or dropping panel seems to be the answer. Besides , this is still just to weird of a solution. It needs to be simpler and more conventional in appearance.
This idea does not seem to work, but it does stimulate another off-shoot concept that hold s more merit. What if , instead of dropping or popping-up, the separation device slides across the room like a curtain on a track. HEY, why not just have a curtain on a track?
* The curtain might be too odd looking, like out of a hospital.
* The curtain would work inasmuch as being inexpensive and uses easy technology. It could be motorized like a movie curtain, so it would not require the semi-asleep spouse to do too uch awakening to accomplish the goal.
* The big problem is that this curtain idea is probably not going to provide the kind of sound-proofing we are looking for. I t would however be a good device to block-away reading or television lights.
The next step is the big breakthrough! A solution simpler , more discrete, and easier to use than all these rest of the ideas that preceded it. It would also cost less to construct and separate the noise and light. What is it? Just like Howie Mandell on “Deal or No Deal“, I will tell you about it after our next “break”. I want you to think what the solution could be and join me next time here on the blog for the innovative new solution that could be the next big thing in master bedroom design.
Creating home ideas is fun. If you want to get a peek at our new Hybrid Ranch” creation,(read about it in my first blog entires) my sales staff now has preliminary art for the home and would be happy to show it to you this weekend at either our main site in Monterey, or our homes in Jackson(on Sherman rd in Sherman Parc subdivision) , or Milwaukee (91st and Good Hope). We are open this weekend from 1 to 4.
On another big creative item of this past week, I am pleased to say we found a way to bend laminate floors into an arch design edge. The installers say they have never seen it done before and with a little (or a lot) of prodding, after they broke a few pieces of flooring trying it, IT GOT DONE! C’mon out to see what I am talking about this weekend in Jackson. We have a really neat sneak previewing of this client-owned- home , that is nearing completion. This home also has the first exposed chimney pipe I have seen in any conventional fireplace ranch home. The pipe comes out of the Mantle top and goes all the way , 12 feet high, through a plant shelf, to the ceiling! This is just so cool looking and , the fire place installers say they have only seen this done before on pot-belly stoves.
Get your creative juices flowing and come to see us this weekend.
Thanks for joining me. I will solve the snoring problem next time.
Blessings,
Tom Hignite
