Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Princess's room: full or queen?

The Princess's room is getting an overhaul.  I didn't do much with her room when we moved in, just threw together what was in her room in the last house.  It was adequate and functional but not exactly inspiring.



We already moved the bookshelves out of the Princess's room and into the upstairs landing.  My budget for this room, with the exception of one item, is non-existent.  Nearly everything will be reused or repurposed from somewhere else in the house.  I only plan on buying one thing: a big girl bed.

Princess is currently in a crib, and her room is not very big.  However, we have frequent house-guests, and when we do, we have to rearrange all the furniture and take the rocking chair out of her room in order to use the air mattress.  Rather than buy Princess a twin bed, and still have to do all the rearranging when guests come, we are buying Princess a bigger bed.  That way, guests can sleep in Princess's bed when they are here, and Princess will sleep with her brothers.

We have been debating a full bed, or a queen.  We taped it out on the floor to get a sense for size.


Obviously the full would fit better in the room.  However, our decision came down to "what's better in this room for the next year versus what will be better in the next house for the next ten years?"  We decided to take the long view--we know that we are going to be in California for a long time, that we are buying a bigger house next year, that we will have frequent family visits, and we want our guests to be comfortable. Since neither this house nor the next house will have a dedicated guest room, that meant a queen bed in our toddler's room.

Nearly all the toys in our house are kept in the playroom, so the lack of floor space in Princess's bedroom is not a huge concern for us.  She only sleeps and gets dressed in here.  I feel silly admitting that my three year old is sleeping on a queen bed---I didn't have a queen bed till I bought my own in my late twenties---but her room is the only place we have for guests, and it would be sillier to make my guests uncomfortable because of a perceived notion that a child doesn't need/deserve a queen bed.

We are having guests for Thanksgiving, so I hope to have this room mostly finished by then.

Anyone else have a kid sleeping on a queen bed so that guests have a place to stay? 

9 comments:

  1. Lisa, I applaud your decision!! The queen will actually make the room feel bigger as well ... crazy but true!! Our four kids all have queens ... the older two had twins when they came out of the crib. That was a waste of money!! Because just a few short years later we needed them to be bigger!!

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  2. We kept a queen and are making my 2 sons share a room just to keep space for guests to sleep. It's worth it to lose a little space and have a nice comfy bed.

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  3. Definitely go for the queen!

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  4. we did the same thing for our daughter- we have a guest room that has a queen, but then for overflow we got her a full. my personal opinion is go with a full because it is not meant to be your guests' permanent room as it is your daughter's and at her age she needs every extra inch for play space.

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  5. Definitely go for the queen! My son's room has a queen bed(and it is the smallest room in the house)

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  6. queen or full, it will be ok. Just wondering though the size of the room you have? If it's too small, you can get a full with a pull-out trundle - ikea has one I think still. good luck!

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  7. My daughter had the same dilemma and she chose to get a queen for her three year old son that will also be used for guests. So of course I think you should go with the queen since it will really prove more useful in the long run.

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  8. I would recomment the Ikea Hemnes daybed. it is a twin day bed then you pull out the drawer and mattress and have a king size perfect for guest plus it has storage drawers were you could keep whatever
    http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30080316/

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  9. I would choose whichever size beds you already have in the house. That way, you can swap sheets around if need be. We actually sleep on a full mattress, but one child has a queen and the other has an I can't remember--and therein lies the problem. I can't remember who has which size, and so buying sheets is a pain. So is figuring out which sheets can go on which bed. I'm sure this reveals something unflattering about my mental capacities or housekeeping!

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