"Getting My Own Room" Plot

Getting My Own Room Plot is when a person wants their very own room.

Often seen in a family setting in which one of the children has to share a room with either an Annoying Younger Sibling or a Big Brother Bully and wanting their own room to get as far away from them. Though, being part of a large family with zero privacy will have the same effect. In another case, bickering roommates would end up getting tired of living with each other with one of them wanting to move out.

Especially in shows where Status Quo Is God, expect the person to actually get their own room or place but suffer a Be Careful What You Wish For situation; since they were so used to the people around them they end up feeling lonely or even scared. When that happens, expect them to go right back to their original room arrangement. In shows that don't care that much about their status quo however, the change is more likely to be permanent.

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Examples:

Advertising

• One Zillow commercial features two brothers roughhousing with the older one asking his parents when will he get his own room. After the parents buy a new house with two rooms for their kids, they find their older son sleeping on the floor in his little brother's room, missing his company.

Anime and Manga

• One Crayon Shin-chan short have Shin-Chan wanting his own room after hearing Kazama (Georgie in the dub) boasting how he had a room to himself. After some negotiating, begging, and threatening, Misae and Hiroshi finally gives in, saying Shin-Chan can have the attic as a bedroom. Unfortunately, Hiroshi and Misae forgot that Shin-Chan is The Pig-Pen; a month later one morning while prepping Shin-Chan for kindergarten, Shin-Chan forgot his lunchbox, saying it's in his bedroom. Cue Misae rushing to the attic, into a horrifying mess of garbage, wastepaper, unfinished food, candy wrappers, and walls coated in graffiti. Needless to say, the next story have Shin-Chan going back to sleeping with his parents.
• For a majority of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Shirogane and his little sister Kei share a bedroom with a curtain splitting it down the middle for privacy since their apartment only has 2 bedrooms (their father doesn't even have a room of his own and instead sleeps in the main living area due to the other room being used as Shirogane's study room). As a result, Kei gets really excited at the thought of finally having her own room when their father informs them that they're going to move to a bigger apartment after a fan of his YouTube streams tries to stalk him.
• After starting high school, Maho from Wandering Son requests her own room from her younger sibling. Her parents don't have the room, so they remove the bunk-beds and instead put a curtain between Nitori's half and Maho's half of the room.

Comic Books

• Craig and his brother complain about sharing a bed in Blankets, so their father makes one of them sleep in a closet for the night. Later on, they get separate rooms but they find it lonely at first.
• Inverted in Runaways, where Molly Hayes seems to prefer sharing a room with someone else.

Films — Animation

• Inverted in Frozen. The story starts off with 8-year-old Elsa and her 5-year-old sister Anna being suddenly separated into different bedrooms because their parents want to keep Anna safe from Elsa's ice powers. Neither girl is happy about it, but only Elsa knows why it's happening.
• A variation occurs at the beginning of Peter Pan when Mr. Darling decides that Wendy is old enough to have her own room instead of sleeping in the nursery with her two younger brothers. Wendy doesn't want this, because the nursery represents childhood and she doesn't want to grow up — this is a main reason why she flies away with Peter Pan that night. In the end, her father changes his mind and lets her stay in the nursery a while longer.

Literature

• A variant appears in The Babysitters Club when Dawn's mother and Mary Anne's father get married. The girls initially insist on sharing a bedroom, since they are best friends as well as stepsisters, but their differences make it difficult. Eventually, Mary Anne moves into the guest room; having their own separate spaces more or less salvages their relationship.
• Goosebumps: In Don't Go to Sleep!, Matt wanted a new room since the one he lived in is small and crowded. He used the guest bedroom as his new room, unaware that if he sleeps in it he'll alter his reality. The TV episode features Matt using the attic as his new bedroom. Although the attic never altered Matt's reality when he sleeps in it. He mentions that he hates reality and gets in trouble with the Reality Police for it.
• One side plot in the Ramona Quimby book Ramona the Brave is about the titular character getting a new bedroom for 6 months. She had previously shared a room with her older sister Beezus, but a new room is added to the family's house and from then on the girls alternate in it every 6 months, with first Ramona sleeping in the new room while Beezus stays in the old one, then vice-versa. In the last book of the series, Ramona’s World, however, Ramona and Beezus go back to sharing their old room while their new baby sister Roberta gets the second room.
• The first Sweet Valley Twins book, Best Friends, has a plot of the Always Identical Twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield wanting separate rooms as Elizabeth is tired of Jessica's mess spilling over onto her side of the room all the time.

Live-Action TV

• Adam-12 — a string of small-item thefts in a neighborhood leads the officers to a kid who stole the stuff and set it up in a cave because his stepdad wouldn't give him his own room. The problem is, the cave collapses and the boy nearly dies.
• In Boy Meets World, Cory gets his own room after Eric goes to college. However, after a rooming mishap, Eric comes back home which really upsets Cory. Cory then spends the day trying to find an apartment for Eric so he could move out.
• In The Brady Bunch episode "Our Son, the Man", Greg decides he wants his own bedroom, now that he's in high school and is too mature to share one with his two little brothers. He manages to take over his father's den, but he is back to the shared bedroom by the end of the episode. Ironically, Greg did get his own room two seasons later, in the attic, in the episode "A Room at the Top", though his oldest sister Marcia (who also shared her room with two younger ones) also tried to claim it. There was an infamous continuity error here since, in the earlier episode, the attic was ruled out as a bedroom for having too low a ceiling.
• Full House
  • In the first episode, it's revealed that DJ originally had her own room, but her room was given to Uncle Jesse and she was moved in with Stephanie. DJ was so unhappy with the new arrangement she tried to move into the garage.
  • A later episode has DJ wanting her own room after dealing with Stephanie's snooping one too many times. DJ ends up getting the approval of Danny and moving into Michelle's room, while Michelle moves in with Stephanie, who was against the move since she was afraid she and DJ would drift apart.
• Good Luck Charlie deals with this twice.
  • In "All Fall Down", Gabe tries to find a new room for himself in the Duncan family house, since youngest sibling Toby is now sleeping in his room. He eventually finds a place in the attic, but his new room is short-lived when the Brazilian termites that Bob brought home reproduce and tear the house apart.
  • In "Driving Mrs. Dabney", on Teddy's 16th birthday, P.J., Gabe, and Charlie sing a rap song for Teddy, and at one point in the song, Gabe mentions that when Teddy moves out in the next few years, he's going to move into her bedroom.
• Home Improvement also has two separate episodes.
  • One episode has Brad successfully lobby Tim and Jill to give him his own room, forcing Randy and Mark to share a room. This did cause some problems for Randy since he felt Brad was leaving him behind. Hilariously, Brad finds out having his own room wasn't all that great since it meant he was expected to take on more responsibilities. He and Randy actually bond a little bit over the fact that Brad is now doing his own laundry.
  • Another episode has Tim build Randy his new room in the basement. Unfortunately, he wasn't prepared for the strange noises in the night and slept in the living room in fright. Thankfully, Tim was able to ease him back to the basement.
• A variant shows up in the Malcolm in the Middle episode "Butterflies;" Dewey is overjoyed to have an entire bed to himself at night because Malcolm is now working the night shift at Lucky Aide.
• On a season 1 episode of The Bernie Mac Show Vanessa, the oldest daughter, is fed up with sharing a bedroom with her little brother and sister now that she's in high school, what results in Vanessa getting her bedroom for herself is her sister and brother crashing her slumber party and bothering her and her friends.
• M*A*S*H had an episode where Hawkeye got fed up with a lack of privacy in the Swamp and moved into a nearby hut. He doesn't say it, but he clearly gets lonely in his new place and moves back to the Swamp later in the episode.
• A sci-fi version was proposed by actor Robert Picardo for Star Trek: Voyager, in which his character, the Emergency Medical Hologram, would be granted his own quarters and become obsessed with gaining objects to fill it with, having never owned anything before. He ended up using the idea in The Hologram's Handbook.
• Thanks: One episode revolves around Grammy getting sick of never having any privacy and James building her a room.
• The Thundermans: Inverted in the b-plot of "Why You Buggin'?" when Billy has to move into Nora's room as her roommate after Barb decides to move Chloe into Billy's room. While the twins are excited, Chloe doesn't want her own room and thinks there's a monster in it; that evening, the twins hear growling sounds and think a monster is in their room. When the parents don't believe them, they set up a booby trap and the culprit is revealed to be Chloe's monster doll; it was revealed Chloe has been teleporting under their beds every night because she's afraid to sleep in her own room. Barb decides to allow Chloe to sleep in the parents' room until she's ready, and allows Billy and Nora to stay roommates.
• Young Sheldon: In "Pish Posh and a Secret Back Room", Missy sees Georgie moving out as a chance to get her own room, so she suggests that Georgie move into the garage, then she moves to Georgie's room and Sheldon gets his and Missy's bedroom all to himself. Although Sheldon acts like he's okay with being alone, he secretly fears the big change happening.

Video Games

• I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: One time during construction, Rex is excited to finally get his own room after being stuck living in the family barracks and then the juvenile barracks aboard the Heliopause.

Webcomics

• Sticky Dilly Buns sets up one of these plots early on when Ruby Larose arrives in the city and is obliged to share a room and a bed with her older sister Amber. She naturally wishes she could get a place of her own, and this is part of her motivation in her subsequent search for employment. Once she starts earning money she is presumably in a position to start looking, and with both Amber and their other roommate, the (very) gay Dillon, in increasingly settled relationships, sharing their rooms must be increasingly complicated, but nothing happens in this regard before the strip ends, and the plot point ultimately goes nowhere much.

Western Animation

• In All Grown Up!, this is downplayed with twins Phil and Lil. She actually gets her own room pretty quickly, but this is just part of a bigger problem that she wants to have more independence from her brother while he wants to remain close.
• In the Arthur episode, "Francine Redecorates", Francine and Catherine get into a feud over how they should have their bedroom redecorated, Catherine decides to move into the living room. Francine soon finds it dull having no one to share her bedroom with, and she and Catherine form a compromise near the end. In the same episode, D.W. imagines what it would be like if she had her own bedroom in the garage, away from Kate, her baby sister.
• Big City Greens: In the b-plot of "Country Side" after the Greens have moved back to the country with Remy coming for an extended stay, Tilly is bothered by the boys' antics every morning, and attempts to find a different place to sleep. She first tries Bill's closet, then under the sink in Nancy's trailer. When Nancy suggests an empty room in the house, Tilly admits while she does want to get a new room, she's afraid to sleep alone because she had been sleeping with a roommate every night since her birth. Nancy reassures her that her family will always be around, and the episode ends with Tilly settling into her own bedroom across from the boys' room.
• Bluey: The plot of "Bedroom". After seeing the family's old nursery room being converted into a spare room, Bluey has an idea to make it as her own room, which her parents grant. Come bedtime, she keeps waking up to ask Bingo for more stuff from the old room. They then exchange messages after being told not to leave the room, which Chilli catches up with. When she gets Bluey back to bed, she tells her mum that she's not sure if she has everything she needs. Eventually, they decided to move Bluey's bed back to her old room, but not before inviting Bingo in for the night.
• In the F is for Family episode "The Liar's Club", Kevin moves out of the room he shared with Bill and starts living in the basement. The main motive behind this was he was annoyed by Bill touching his stuff, waking him up at 5 A.M. while getting ready for his morning paper route, and walking in on him masturbating. Unlike most examples of this trope, both Kevin and Bill are happy with having their own private rooms and the former has stayed in the basement since.
• The Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "Room With a Feud" has Bloo, Wilt, Coco, and Eduardo fighting over a single room that opens up.
• In Gravity Falls episode "Carpet Diem", Dipper and Mabel decide they don't want to share the attic bedroom anymore and try to win a room containing a body-swapping carpet that creates even more confusion. In the end, however, both twins change their minds and decide to again share the attic bedroom, with Dipper giving the room to Soos to replace the awful engine room he tried to sleep in.
• Gerald from Hey Arnold! ends up moving into Arnold's grandpa's boarding house after being tired of dealing with both an Annoying Younger Sibling and Big Brother Bully and feeling shafted as the middle child. It wasn't as good as he thought since he was now on his own and had to take care of himself.
• Jacob Two-Two: The first episode, "Jacob Two Two vs. the Hooded Fang", has this as a subplot; the family has just moved to their house in Montreal, and Jacob has to share a room here with his annoying brother Noah. He convinces his parents to give him the attic as his room if he can prove he's able to spend a night there without getting scared. By the end of the episode, he succeeds, and the attic thus becomes his room for the remainder of the series.
• Kick Buttowski: Inverted in "Brad's Room''; Both of the brothers had their own rooms at the beginning of the episode, but after they destroy Kick’s they’re forced to share Brad’s.
• The Loud House
  • Inverted for Lisa in "Room with a Feud." When Lisa comes up for alternate roommate arrangements for the siblings, she is the only one with her own room. Lincoln accuses her of rigging the result so she could have her own room but Lisa actually prefers a roommate since it gives her an already available test subject.
  • In "Garage Banned," Lori ends up getting fed up with the chaotic nature of her younger siblings and demands her own room. While the younger Louds don't like the idea, Lori is given her own room in the Louds' garage. Unfortunately, the situation isn't ideal for Lori because not only is it boring, but during the night, she is unable to sleep because she is too scared. She then spends the rest of the episode trying to get back to her room but is unintentionally foiled by her siblings. She does move back after finally admitting she misses them.
  • A variation occurs in "The Mad Scientist." Lisa gets invited to a science institute to get away from her crazy household so she could be able to finish her work. She is then offered a permanent stay in the institute. While her family is against it since she is only 4 years old, she is able to convince them to let her stay since she assumes she has a low family attachment. Lisa soon finds out it wasn't all that great and actually starts missing her family.
• Work It Out Wombats!: In "A Room of Our Own", Malik and Zadie get annoyed at each other's habits, and declare that they want their own rooms. It doesn't last.

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