There are no tricks to designing functional bedrooms, but a frequent mistake is to have a poor bed location in relation to the bedroom’s traffic pattern. Because bedrooms usually have at least several doors — the entrance door from a hallway, closet doors in various arrangements, and possibly a door to a private bathroom, dressing room, or even to an adjoining child’s nursery — these entranceways make continuous wall space for furniture, including the bed, hard to find.

Typical bedroom traffic patterns are from the main bedroom door to the bathroom, clothes closet, or dresser, in that order of frequency. If you have to walk around the end of the bed to reach any of these places, you’ll have an awkward traffic pattern. When laying out each bedroom make sure there’s a place to locate the bed or beds that won’t result in the creation of obstacle courses.

An unused “secondary” bedroom is ideal for guests. If you expect frequent visitors, consider equipping such a bedroom with an attached bath for privacy. Try to have the heating and cooling for this bedroom zoned for energy savings.