Keep this in mind when looking at plans: the ceiling to the front will limit your use of the space to the front of your room.

The average person is 1.8m (5foot 5inches) tall. Anything below this height makes it unsuitable for standing up, which is needed for major circulation and doors.

So in at the front of a bedroom where the angled ceiling drops below 1.8m, the space is best for drawers, or a desk, or shelves, or a bath.

Bedroom

If the bed is going to the front of the room then the wall also needs to be 1.4m high or you’ll be hitting your head when you get in and out of bed.

Dressing Area

Leave the wall at 1.2m high and put drawers against that front wall. This new dressing area can be enclosed with a wall or left open to the bedroom.

A wall dividing the dressing area from the bedroom is best kept at 1.8m high, to leave a space to the ceiling. Then rooflights to the front can be positioned as high as they will go and let light into both the dressing area and the bedroom.

Ensuites and bathrooms

That low space is best used by a toilet. And for standing, the rooflight is positioned over the toilet for an extra 10cm of headroom (so rooflights aren’t just for the view and lighting!)

Toilet cisterns are taller than drawers, so the vertical wall in an ensuite is built and positioned 1.4m high.

So this is the ideal layout.

Bear this in mind - changing layout can have knock-on effects

If you change the height of the fittings and furniture (toilets, bed, etc) then it could have a knock-on effect on the height of the front wall.

If the wall needs to be taller, then it moves into the room and you lose a bit of floor area (about 30 to 40cm).

In the ensuite this is usually not a problem, but it may pinch space for the door swinging clear of the toilet, or space between the toilet - basin - shower.

In the bedroom the foot of the bed may move into the space where the door swings into the room.

It has a knock-on effect the other way too, where the wall is reduced in size. The new rafters have further to span to the ridgeboard and then may have to increase in size. If beds/ doors/ circulation space/ showers are already positioned to the headheight limits, they may have to move.