ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Must a Bedroom be a "Habitable" Room?

Studio apartments are considered dwelling units, but they have no actual bedrooms.

Re-reading Renos description, no head room, and only a mattress fitting, and no 'walking area'....I have to say nothing would be required.

That said, without actually 'seeing' this space, it's a tough call

We had these at a beach house when I was a kid. I will never foget sleeping in this it was awesome. We were small enoug that 2 of us could sleep in a twin. My parents said we didn't have to ask us to go to bed we couln't wait. And also there was a rail. Like a bunk bed.


Ob

My kids had one of these "lofts" in the trailer/cabin/RV they lived in for a while when my son in law was moving around the state with the Florida Park Service.

Quote IRC, the residential excerpt of IBC:

SECTION R304
MINIMUM ROOM AREAS
R304.1 Minimum area. Every dwelling unit shall have at least
one habitable room that shall have not less than 120 square feet
(11 m2) of gross floor area.
R304.2 Other rooms. Other habitable rooms shall have a floor
area of not less than 70 square feet (6.5 m2).
Exception: Kitchens.
R304.3 Minimum dimensions. Habitable rooms shall not be
less than 7 feet (2134 mm) in any horizontal dimension.
Exception: Kitchens.
R304.4 Height effect on room area. Portions of a room with a
sloping ceiling measuring less than 5 feet (1524 mm) or a
furred ceiling measuring less than 7 feet (2134 mm) from the
finished floor to the finished ceiling shall not be considered as
contributing to the minimum required habitable area for that
room.

A "loft" is not a habitable room, and can't be considered one for real estate purposes. I'm not aware of any laws specifically prohibiting someone from sleeping in a storage loft, but I'm pretty sure it can't be advertised as a bedroom.

There are other requirements for egress and ventilation for bedrooms that a loft can't meet, either.

I suppose that's where the issue hangs: does a house need to have a 'bedroom' at all? Where does it say that a 'sleeping loft' is a 'bedroom?' As the author of "The Small House Book" is constantly reminding us, his lofts are too low to be considered as habitable rooms - but that doesn't seem to preclude their use for sleeping areas.

Similar semantics are at play with the ladder to the loft; since it's not a 'stairway,' it need not meet stairway requirements.

I think he's found a loophole.

These are the houses that we're talking about: http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/houses/

Looking at the ad I'd rephrase the original post to "considerably less than 1000 sq. ft." - rather looks like 100 sq. ft. on the 1st floor.

Techie, give yourself a pat on the back; that is, indeed, the first book I looked at that got me thinking.

I didn't link to it because I've been loking at plenty of other designs. For example, there was a Scandanavian prcatice a few centuries back where each person had a 'sleeping shelf' in the perimeter wall of the main (and often only) rom. Each such area had some means of closing it off from the main room for privacy- but was essentially nothing more than a very large bench seat.

Another reason I've avoided direct links is that much of what is out there has an overt political focus, and this is not the place to go down that path.

It's not purely academic for me, though. I've taken on the repair of an older, smaller home .... and the wiser move might be for me to build quarters 'within' while I work on the rest.

It's a sleeping area so it becomes a bedroom. When you have an area that has multiple purposes, we must build to the most restrictive of the rules. Not only should the loft have receipts 12 feet apart, but smoke alarms, AFCI protections, egress window and stairs. How many of us in the middle of the night can safely maneuver a ladder to hit the head? It's hard enough using a ladder during the day when we are being paid