Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.It’s usually around the third meeting with a new client that Francis Sultana might broach a potentially awkward design decision. “I’ll just throw in a few little seeds,” says the London-based interior designer, “because if the suggestion comes from me, it’s much easier to engage.” Why not reconfigure the boudoir with a pair of equal-sized bedrooms, rather than a single primary suite? This way, he offers, you can each express your individual taste. And have somewhere to sleep if one of you has the flu. Both, of course, are a fig leaf for the prosaic reason he sees so many couples opt for two bedrooms. “We never call it a snoring room, but that’s what it is. We call it a secondary master bedroom.”The snoring room is an increasingly common feature in homes with space for such a luxury (though some would say necessity). One in six couples in Britain sleeps apart, and half of those in separate bedrooms, research by the Sleep Council shows. High-profile names have touted its appeal — actress Cameron Diaz, for example, and TV host Carson Daly, who told US viewers that he was “served my sleep divorce papers a few years ago” after his wife became pregnant with their youngest child. These bonus rooms also improve a home’s value, according to data provided by Realtor.com. Homes with two primary bedrooms were priced 13.6 per cent higher per square foot than the national average stateside in June this year. And, when adjusted for home size difference, the median listing price for properties with two primary bedrooms per sq ft was $250; $30 higher than the national median.Of course, snoring rooms are much easier to design and create for wealthy owners with spare space at home. Sultana says he first began handling requests for snoring room-style designs 15 years ago. “Now, it’s the norm. And the ones I’ve done? All those marriages are still together. I’d call it the ‘happy marriage bedroom’ not the snoring room.” He’ll typically tweak the design for heterosexual couples, with one bedroom and en suite softer and more feminine, and the second with darker marble and masculine accents. If there’s any size difference, the default is always to deed the larger one to the wife (“She’ll always have more stuff”).There is no data to suggest that sleeping apart means your sex lives are over. In fact, good sleep is important for good sex: it has a profound effect on hormones like testosteroneKolter Homes is a Florida-based developer that builds customised homes in several states across the US, including Georgia, the Carolinas and Florida. When it last refreshed the templates for those properties, in 2021, it added an option for a snoring room in response to client feedback, says senior vice-president of sales Marc Friedman. Opting for the snoring room configuration rather than using the space as a den, the design default, adds $1,200 or so to a floor plan, Friedman says. “If anything, it gets people thinking and intrigues them — [especially if they] have spouses who ‘snore like crazy.’”Kolter’s target market is what it euphemistically calls “active adults”, typically those aged 55-plus who might be downsizing or moving into a new home for their retirement. They’re also long married, and so more primed to seek two bedrooms without worrying about the impact on the relationship. But it’s by no means restricted to this demographic.Indeed, experts say that so-called sleep divorce needn’t have the negative impact many might fear. Wendy Troxel, author of Sharing the Covers: Every Couple’s Guide to Better Sleep, says she prefers to call it a “sleep alliance”, to shed stigma. “It’s about being more respectful and honest, and about forging an alliance to do what’s best for them to promote healthy sleep.” She has conducted extensive research on the impact of sleeping next to a partner, after noticing that much of the existing data was drawn from studies on individuals in, perhaps, a lab, an artificially solo experience versus the typical bedroom set-up. “It’s not what sleep looks like in the wild, and allows for societally prescribed norms and beliefs to drive and dictate behaviour.”Troxel says that about 30 per cent of an individual’s sleep is interdependent on that of whomever they share their bed with; sleeping away from a snoring partner can materially improve the calibre of nightly rest. “And there really is no data to suggest that sleeping apart means your sex lives are over. In fact, getting good sleep is important for good sex: it has a profound effect on sex hormones like testosterone.”Troxel also notes that sharing a bed with your partner is a relatively recent default. Think of the TV series I Love Lucy, she notes, where the couple were shown in adjoining single beds. “There was a backlash against that in the 1960s, with habits like that perceived as the prudish behaviour of earlier generations — if you didn’t do one, you weren’t getting the other. But there is no conclusive data at all.”Francis Sultana certainly agrees — he has long maintained two primary bedrooms at the home he shares with his husband, the gallerist David Gill (though he demurely declines to comment on whether either of them snores). “I’m an advocate for it. It’s not like exile,” he says. “You can take whatever’s missing from the master bedroom and give it to yourself — the bed you wanted, or the colour they didn’t. But the secret is to be the one to leave, to make the concession. That’s when you can strike that deal.”Find out about our latest stories first — follow @FTProperty on X or @ft_houseandhome on Instagram
