The greatest luxury a noble family enjoys may well be privacy. A salon or suite of rooms (a kind of private apartment attached to the great hall) is where they may withdraw from their servants and guests to do as they please.  For everyone else who lives or works at the castle (knights, men-at-arms, servants and friends), privacy is impossible.  In these times, all poor people live their lives in full view of their neighbors, friends and family.  They live in the same houses, eat together, wash together, and do almost everything else in public. No one has a bedroom to himself.  Most people sleep on pallets - mattresses stuffed with straw or feathers.  At dawn these can be rolled up and tucked away.
  The baron's man-servant guards him at night and sometimes sleeps in the same room on a small bed.  Sometimes he spends the night dozing on a straw mat outside the baron's bedroom door. The dogs and children of the noble family also share the same room with the baron.
  After his horses and armor, the baron's  bed may be his most valuable possession.  It is certainly the most valuable piece of furniture in the castle. The bed is a wooden frame filled with straw.  A mattress or feather-bed sits on top of the straw.  There are heavy curtains all around, to make it snug and private.    The windows are shuttered at night, so the room is as dark as a cave and a huge candle burns all night. The air is so cold night caps are worn to keep people's heads warm.
  Sir Richard's servants wake up very early to light the fires in the various rooms.  They bring breakfast to Sir Richard and Lady Elena's private salon.  There is no coffee or tea, few people like milk, and plain water carries illnesses, so even children have ale with the day's first meal.
The effort of drawing water from the well and heating it means a bath is a rare treat.  Taken mostly for fun - or before a feast, even John the 13th century King of England bathed only once every three weeks or so.  Servants fill buckets of water from the well within the bailey, heat it outside, in a huge cauldron, bring in a wooden tub and fill it with the hot water.  It takes a long time to heat enough buckets of water to fill a tub.  Because of this several people often share a bath.  Soap is made of mutton fat, wood ash and soda.  It is soft and foul smelling.  Bath water is sprinkled with herbs and flowers to improve the experience.

It is midday, and in the great hall, the tables are laid for a grand meal.
  Sir Richard will invite everyone - minstrels, tourists and wandering knights - to join the company.  Only the baron, Lady Elena and a few of the more important guests will have chairs.  They will preside over the meal from a special raised table - the "high table".

The other tables in the hall are just boards resting on trestles.

  Now,  in early summer the food is splendid.  There will be four courses today, each with soup, fish, meat and sweets. 

You must wash your hands before you eat since you will be eating with your fingers.  A squire will bring basins and pitchers to the noble family and their special guests.  Everyone else will use basins near the door.  Very few people will use plates - one of the squires serving at table will cut a slice of stale bread to put the food on.  Later the bread will be given to the poor.  You will use your own knife to cut up your meat.  A platter of food is usually shared by two people.  You make friends quickly this way.