Counting sheep

We are getting ever-closer to our dream of leaving the city far behind and living on a piece of peaceful, blissful, rural acreage.  And by 'far behind' I mean 'reasonable commuting distance' of course.  We have abandoned previous plans to buy 160+ acres of spectacular Australian bush an hour's drive from the city, and are now salivating over a smaller, almost tree-less block less than half an hour away.  We drove out there last weekend to have a look around. The neighbours have chickens and sheep and goats and horses.

There was an enormous mob of Eastern Grey kangaroos enjoying the afternoon sun.  There must have been around 60, I think, and they all looked at us as if to say 'what the hell are you doing on our land?'  There are few things more magnificent than the sight of several dozen grey kangaroos making their way across a pasture then over the fence, bound-bound-leap-bound-bound.  Awesome.  It looked like a Mexican wave.

So of course now that we're back on board the Rural Acreage Express, we've been giving some serious consideration to the house.  Not that I haven't been obsessing over the details for about, oh, seven or eight years.  But now that the end is in sight and we may have finally found the perfect place to build our Dream Home, we're thinking kitchens, we're thinking mud rooms, we're thinking His And Hers Master Suites.

Yep.

I have this problem, you see.  Somebody in this marriage is a really light sleeper.  The other person is a really loud snorer.  Sometimes, someone likes to stay up late, and come to bed at 3am and press their freezing cold body up against the warm, cozy body of the person already in bed.  And sometimes, someone else likes to read in bed.  These roles are fully interchangeable, of course.  Yes, we both snore (but let me just state for the record that he is MUCH louder than me.)  And yes, we're both grumpy as all get-up in the mornings after we've barely managed five hours between us.

We are considering adding another bedroom, next door to the 'master bedroom' that has the ensuite and the walk-in wardrobe.  It wouldn't need to have its own bathroom and wardrobe, it just needs a bed.

The main argument against separate bedrooms, from what I can gather from various online discussions, is that having separate bedrooms defeats the purpose of getting married in the first place.  Why marry someone if you aren't willing to share a bed?

The main argument for separate bedrooms is that couples can have completely incompatible sleep habits and so sleeping together means nobody ever gets a good night's sleep.

There seem to be a lot of people who end up sleeping on the couch because they can't fall asleep next to their spouse.  When PJ had the chickpox, he was very restless during the night, and if I accidentally snuggled up against him he yelled out in pain.  It was bloody awful.  And to make matters worse, we don't have a spare room or a decent couch for sleeping on; both our couches are small two-seaters.  I ended up sleeping on the floor on my yoga mat.  At the time I was still nursing a broken rib so you can just imagine how comfortable THAT was. 

In fact, for three months after I broke my rib I couldn't lie on my side, and when I lie on my back I snore like a combine harvester, apparently.  So, for three months poor PJ never had a decent night's sleep. 

A lot of couples sleep apart when there are babies in the house; they take it in turns to sleep with the baby monitor.  And the arrangement, if convenient, continues.  Other couples work shiftwork and so the late night arrivals and departures were mutually disruptive.  And then there are those people who want to still have their own space after they are married... I think that all of the comments about 'a room of one's own' came from women, interestingly.  (And of course I can't find the page I was looking at yesterday, where there was a very lively discussion in the comments section - so you'll have to take my word for it.)

For the couples already enjoying the benefits of separate bedrooms, they said it strengthened their marriage, allowed them to get more sleep, improved their sex life and actually enhanced their relationship because they made an extra effort during their waking hours to connect with their partners, to make up for the time spent apart during the night. 

So PJ and I have been talking about it.  And today I consulted with a couple of girlfriends who, it turns out,  BOTH spend several nights a week apart from their respective husbands.  Whether it was due to the kids' sleeplessness or illness or early rising for work, they have both been sleeping apart from their husbands on a regular basis for years and they both say that the arrangement is fantastic.

I don't have a problem with the notion of sleeping apart from my husband but I also don't think I would necessarily spend every single night away.  I just want to have the option, is all.  Whether it ends up being a full-time deal, or a just-during-the-week deal, I don't know.  But in thinking about this new house, which we are building to accommodate our family and our every whim, it seems to make sense to build in the option.  I don't want PJ to have to skulk off to the sofa or to the designated guest room whenever I'm snoring, and I don't want to sleep too far away from him (the guest room on our preliminary plans is at the opposite end of the house). 

For several years now I have been tearing pages out of house magazines and filing them away for the future.  Here's one of the pages I had saved from Home Beautiful:

 

This is perfect.  It's a bed, but it's also somewhere I can go during the day and enjoy an uninterrupted phone call.  Imagine you're looking at this bed, and if you turned around 180 degrees you could see this:

 
Or this?

I have blogged before of my desire to have a room of my own - the new house gives the girls a bedroom each, then a study for PJ, then a craft studio for the girls and I to share.  But there isn't a space that's actually mine, all mine.  My previous post, where I talked about having a 'withdrawing room' featured this picture:

I remember thinking, when I first happened upon this idea of a chaise, that this was something I could sleep on if I needed to escape my husband's snoring.  I think I like the daybed idea a LOT more.  What do you think? 

And what is your opinion on the whole concept of separate rooms?  I'd love to know what you think.

Comments

[Trish]

Hi Heather... thanks for your comment!

My initial thoughts are that it will be accessed through a door from the main bedroom, but who knows how it will end up? I have some ideas in my mind and on paper, but we're planning to give our architect the freedom to suggest other ideas that we hadn't considered. I'm excited to see what s/he comes up with.

[Heather]

One other thing to consider... would the separate room have just a door to the "master" bedroom, or also a door to the hallway? I think you need both, to make it both easy to get to at night and also more "officy" during the day.

[deece]

i think there is great merit to the idea of having separate rooms... and then having 'sleepovers' you feel the need for some company... i have friends who currently live in a one room studio and 'she' is a great advocate of this idea, in the ideal house she envisages living in one day. perhaps it's all a matter of perspective?

[Heather]

My first vision was a separate room with a bed, and that's it - seems stark. I like the daybed or fainting couch thing in a study of your own. If your husband has one and the kids have a craft/playroom (ok, that you share), why shouldn't you have a study - especially if you are writing a novel? You pose a bunch of different reasons, and it seems to make sense for you. Don't call it a separate bedroom if it doesn't have a bed!

[Trish]

Seepi - I agree, it would be a bugger to make the bed! I might have to think about how to get around that problem.

[seepi]

That daybed would be hell to get sheets onto...

I am actually a bit horrified by the idea of separate beds, but Mr mentions it occasionally...he likes to be alone when feeling ill. He has gradually realised how important it is to me to have that togetherness at night though, so he doesn't bring it up much anymore.

[Kathy]

I'm gonna come back and read your whole post but I thought I'd comment about the separate sleeping quarters. Mark and I have basically been sleeping apart for our entire marriage. It started when I was pregnant (heartburn, restlessness, etc.) and continued after Jessie was born although I do remember a few nights when she was a newborn where we all slept together. Now, after 11 years of marriage, I sleep downstairs in our "room" in bed - Mark sleeps on the couch. Which gives me an endless amount of guilt every single day. Not good, right? In a perfect world, we have our own rooms (I just love to sleep alone and those evenings where we start out sleeping in the same bed - always ends with me getting up and moving to the couch) but space doens't allow that right now. I feel terrible because I know that the couch is uncomfortable (I've slept on it enough) and I can't imagine how he manages to get more than a couple of hours a night but he says he does. His reasoning is that because I'm getting up and going to work everyday, I'm the one who needs the full night's sleep. Boy this is a long comment, huh?

Blog worthy even...

[red dirt mummy]

As much as I love our house (which we move back to in one week!!!) I really wish we had an extra bedroom. I don't think I'd want to sleep in a different room on a regular basis, or even very often, but it sure is nice to have the option when you want it - as you said, when the kids are sick, when one of us is sick, when he's snoring waaaayyy louder than is acceptable...

I wish I had a craft room of my own too but that's just wishful thinking :)