The Pesky Middle Room

Some rowhomes are long enough that there are three rooms on the second floor. The front bedroom is often largest with the biggest windows. The back bedroom might have smaller windows and perhaps a porch off the back. But the middle bedroom is trouble. Because the stairs and hallway take up some of the width of the house, the middle room is small. Light is just a single window off an air/light shaft or unattached side.

Our middle room is about 9 feet by 9 feet. A room this size allows for the placement of a queen size bed, with 24 inches of room on three sides. It has a 12 deep closet with a hook - hangers would be placed parallel to the wall, not perpendicular. It has one window, which faces north.

Many houses I have visited have altered this configuration, because the room is just too tight for people who have a lot of stuff, like dressers or bookshelves or clothes. The house next door has the middle room combined with the front room which gives one large L shaped room. They were able to add large closets along a wall, thus getting a sleeping area in the front and a dressing area towards the middle.

In another house, a prior renovation turned the little room into a giant walk in closet with a window for the front room. Perhaps this was closet overkill: a recent renovation cut the closet in half and ceded the other half to enlarging the adjacent bathroom. Now the bathroom has two windows and a lot of floor space, a current trend.

I have seen a few examples of combining the middle room with the hallway. It solves the problem of the narrow hall, allows light to reach further in and makes the room seem larger too. Of course, the room can't be used as a bedroom since it has no walls, so it is furnished as a family room, office, TV room, sewing room or what-have-you. My grandmom and my mother-in-law both set up sewing areas on the large second floor landings of their houses, and although neither of them were in rowhomes, maybe it is a pattern that makes sense.

For those homes that haven't reconfigured the second floor, the room is used as a nursery, office or art studio. With clever use of a loft bed/desk/dresser combination, my kindergarden aged nephew manages to fit into their middle room.

My current dream plan for my second floor would divide the room into 3 pieces. One piece for the front room, for a good sized reach in closet, one piece to enlarge the bathroom, and one piece to widen the hallway enough to fit a laundry area up there.