extreme home makeover: boy’s room edition (part I)

i told you, didn’t i?

this is the time of year when we get CAH-RAZY in these here parts.

the family room is almost, but not quite done. (pictures forthcoming…we’re still waiting on 2 chairs)

so we’re moving on. five needs to sleep in her crib. as of right now she’s in a playpen in our room. the initial plan was two girls in each of the bigger bedrooms, and the boy in the tiny room.

remember the tiny room? the one i waxed poetic about here, and then started re-doing for guinevere, and before it even got finished we had another (girl) baby and things have to change again…remember that? ugh.

okay, it’s awesome diagram time.
this is a not to scale, but sizes are proportionately okay, if not entirely correct, drawing:

so right now guinevere is alone in the small bedroom #1, ava and gigi share bedroom #2, and harrison has bedroom #3.

bedrooms 2 and 3 are pretty close in size (i think 3 is about a foot smaller on one side or something like that).

plans have changed…again. and it was all because of this:

Source: augustfields.blogspot.com via Shannon on Pinterest

is that not pretty much the coolest thing ever?

this gal over at august fields has one of the most gorgeous homes i've seen on the web. her kitchen is positively drool-worthy.
and the boys' bunk room is just awesome.

when the kids saw it they wanted it immediately. and when i showed it to the googiedaddy, i think it was about .05 seconds before he had his tape measure out and a pencil tucked behind his ear (that’s the sign that he’s really working—pencil tucked behind the ear)

and this is what we’ve come up with:

it's very exciting. but i'm practical--and i try to think through every contingency.
i have 3 concerns with this awesome plan:

o1) we just took our 4 bedroom house and turned it into a 3 bedroom house. resale?

well, we don’t plan on leaving here. ever. but if needed, the googiedaddy can put the wall back up easily. and it’s still a 3 bedroom. it’s not like we’re making it a 2 bedroom.

o2) FOUR girls sharing one bedroom? is that insane? is 18 year old guinevere really going to want to sleep in a bunk bed and share a bedroom with 7 year old elliot?

okay, so this is a big one. and basically our answer as parents is: too bad. we strive to have a close knit family. we want our children to love each other and have lasting true friendships. i don’t have a biological* sister, and unabashedly tell you that i’m jealous of my girls having so many sisters. so yes, while there may be probably will be definitely will be tears and fights at points, in the long run this is what we want for our family.
and as a secondary point—the girls will have to share either way. the options aren’t “each girl in her own room” vs. “all 4 together”. it’s share with one sister in a smaller space, or share with all sisters in a bigger space.

*while i lament my lack of biological sister(s), i am blessed by many sisters from another mother..and father. you know who you are ;)

o3) desk space. starting with middle school (7th grade here) we will be home/cyber schooling the kids. for guinevere this is next year (AHHH!) we gave her a desk in preparation for that in the little room, with the new big room there’s not really room for that.

honestly, as of right now we don’t have a solution for this. but we’ll figure something out.

BUT WAIT! didn’t you title this post: boy’s room???

yes, yes i did. because as excited as we are about all of this planning for the girls’ room the fact is harrison is just as in need of a room makeover. so that was step one. even though he was keeping the same bedroom, at 9 years old he had definitely outgrown the buzz lightyear theme.

:(

i has the “my little boy is getting big” sads.

so this past weekend we did a whirlwind room makeover for him. we didn’t send him to disney, but
we did send him to a friend’s house.

and tomorrow i’m going to share all the “befores” so come back for that!