Why I chose the smallest bedroom in the house for the "master" bedroom

When my man and I moved in to this house 9 years ago, we didn't spend a whole lot of time thinking about which bedroom should be ours, because the answer seemed obvious. The largest bedroom is usually the master, right? Done.

(The pictures in this post show the result of that decision -- the larger room in its master bedroom incarnation -- so, like the pictures of the old office in my previous post they're essentially "before" pictures for our room-swapping project.)

I should note that this was before my girl was born, so there were fewer claims on the house's various spaces then. What is now her room housed the futon for guests, the tv, and my man's desk. And when that room became a nursery, the futon (and guest room function) migrated to the office, the tv to the living room, and sort of by process of elimination my man's desk to the master bedroom. Oh and at some point my grandmother's cedar chest got put in the bedroom too and started acting as my bedside table, mostly because there was no other place for it in the house.

Still, there didn't really seem to be any reason to question the idea that large bedroom = master. So why am I doing so now, and cramming two whole grown-ups into a space roughly the same size as our daughter's small room?

To be honest, the new arrangement is mostly driven by my wanting the larger room for the "atelier" (disclaimer: when referring to the room in conversation I just call it the office, because I am only a little bit pretentious) and then trying to figure out how to make the smaller space work as a bedroom.
 

But I think there are advantages to the arrangement too. Constraining the amount of space also forces us to strip back the functions contained in the bedroom: nothing but sleeping, sexing, and dressing. And I have to admit, that old saw about how a bedroom should be a restful haven (no tv, no computer, etc.) holds some appeal.

Knowing that the space was going to be tight has also forced me to think deliberately and creatively about how to make sure it doesn't feel tighter than it is -- meaning, how to cut down on visual clutter, how to create a unified look to the space so that it truly feels clean and restorative, rather than like a bunch of unrelated stuff shoved where it juuuust barely fits.



It's been an interesting exercise, and while the ideas I've come up with won't all come to fruition overnight I'm optimistic about my overall vision.

What's more grown-up and worthy of the title of "master"* bedroom, after all -- a big room that contains a concatenation of stuff because, well, it all fits there, or a room that, albeit small, is actively designed to be restful and pleasing? You know which option gets my vote.

*After typing the phrase "master bedroom" so many times in writing this post I'm finding myself irked by the gendered connotations. Apparently I'm not alone but there doesn't seem to be much of a better alternative. Ideas?