Basement addition - bedroom access directly through den or add hallway?

[RatLabGuy]

Hi folks.
I've started finishing part of the basement in our 70s ranch home.
It's pretty big, for now I'm only doing about 2/5th of the total space.
Adding a den, and bedroom. For now the bedroom is for occasional guests, family staying for holidays etc... although in several years once our son is older, it will likely become his bedroom.

Classic Ranch basement w/ stairs in the middle of house, you walk down and it opens to the new den on your right, w/ a fireplace in the center of the home so it will be part of a wall.
The bedroom is directly beside the den.

The question at hand is - what is the best thing to do about access into the bedroom?
Here's a link to a cheesy PPT sketch showing two possibilities...
http://www.rewazule.com/David/house/...ss_options.png

Option A - Most obvious answer is, door in den that opens directly into it. Simple and efficient. But, this feels kind of awkward, and I wonder about noise/privacy for the occupant when the den is in use.

Option B - Frame in a hallway going back behind the fireplace/furnace/water heater and add at the end going into the room from the side. Add a big storage area and doors to utilities etc. I'd think this would "privatize" the bedroom, and also provide framing already to connect a bathroom/other rooms on the other end later as well. I could even put the bedroom closet on that shared wall to cut down on acoustics.
But it eats up a lot of space! And is a whole lot of framing just to move a doorway.
One other (minor) issue is that the central beam and ducting run the midline of the house, so hallway would have to go under it - make for a 3' section w/ a kind of low height (6'8 or something).

Opinions? Or maybe another option I'm not seeing?

[C-COOP]

I would draw it up on one of those 3-D CAD programs and do a virtual walk-through. That looks like a long hallway in my opinion.

[Concretemasonry]

You could have big egress problems for the bedroom and this could limit any code approval.

Without code approval, that area will not be reflected in the livable square footage and value, so the future financing options for buyers will limit the market.

Dick

[RatLabGuy]

Dick, you have a valid point.
I'm aware of the "egress" problem, unfortunately there are no windows on this end of the basement (it's below grade). I refer to it as a bedroom knowing the truth is that's how it will probably be used, although I also realize in the eye of the county and realtors it is a "study" or whatever.
Everything IS being done to code under local permits.
And if it makes anybody feel better, I'm also looking into installing a fire suppression/sprinkler system due to the limited egress just for added safety. I'm not fond of it but unfortunately, this is just what I have to work with.
And plan B w/ the hallway I fear to have the "trapped in a basement": feeling.

All that said... after more discussion, we have decided that in the long term, we'd really prefer that small room space to be more open and connected to the rest to use as hang-out (e.g. TV room, whatever) and have the bedroom elsewhere.
As mentioned there is a whole lot more space (over to the left side), we just can't afford to do it all now.

So the long-term plan I believe will be to wall off the room as an occasional-use bedroom for now, then in a year or two, frame in another section (over to the left) adding another room, maybe a bathroom as well, then remove the wall to open this up. There are windows over on that side anyway ;-) although they are still unfortunately below the minimum egress size :-(....

So based on that, I'll probably just add a door directly into it. Now just have to be creative about creating the door frame due the steel I-beam being a bit low...