What is a bedroom?

This is like my post the other day about 1/4 baths except today I am going to write about what a bedroom is and it is complicated.

On the MLS a room listed as a bedroom must have an egress window and a closet.  I am not sure why it has to have a closet but those are the rules and I don’t make them.  We do see homes that are listed as three bedroom homes that do not have three bedrooms.

Loft
Loft
 

It is possible to have a room that is being used as a bedroom that does not have a closet or an egress window but that just makes it a room used as a bedroom not a bedroom.

Then we have the term “legal bedroom” which doesn’t mean all that much.  A legal bedroom in St. Paul has an egress window that is a window large enough for a firefighter to go through in full gear and a closet.  

There isn’t such a thing as a illegal bedroom and it is legal to sleep any place in your home that you want to.  There is such a thing as a non-conforming bedroom which is a room that can be used as a bedroom but it is missing the closet or the egress window or both.  These rooms are often listed in the MLS as a den or sometimes they are listed as a bedroom but there is a note indicating that it is a non conforming bedroom. 

The loft in the picture may show up on the MLS as having no bedrooms because it is one large room with one or more bathrooms in separate rooms.  Some of the larger lofts house several people and sleeping areas are walled off with partitions.  For some reason the sleeping areas do not qualify as non-conforming bedrooms, they are not bedrooms at all.  Some lofts have raised sleeping platforms.  They end up being called bedrooms but most do not have closets or egress windows.  

Real estate is local and locally regulated it is possible that the term bedroom means something different in other parts of the country.  The definition of a loft is not universal either.