Thursday, December 5, 2013

Boys' Room {In Progress}: switcheroo

My lack of spatial planning skills have already been discussed on this blog ad nauseum, but here's another example, just in case you weren't sure.  

When we moved in, we put the boys in the corner room.  It is 11 x 11, and about the same size as fourth bedroom, but the fourth bedroom has the closet in a bump-out, and it seemed that would be easier to fit the beds in the other room.  On moving day we put the boys in the corner room.  


We piled a bunch of junk and unused furniture in the Room of Requirement. 


Fast forward about two weeks.  I have played around with every possible furniture combination, and the only way to fit two beds in that bedroom is to block either the door or the closet that runs the full length of one wall.  I mentioned to the Mister that perhaps we should think about moving the boys into the junk room, but it was generally decided that would be an enormous PITA, and thus the boys lived for six months in the corner room, with the bed blocking the closet (and all the storage that closet entails but we can't access).  

We decided that the obvious solution would be to buy a bunk bed.  For reasons I won't bore you with, we needed a low loft bunk bed, not a high bunk.  We found one we liked, but it was $1300.  I started a bunk bed fund and saved money towards it.  

Then we decided that the disgusting living room carpet was more of a priority than a bunk bed, but I still hated the set up in the boys room.  And I came back to the idea of switching what was now the guest bedroom with the boys room.  Because that solved all of our furniture orientation problems FOR FREE, with the only cost being our aching backs and about seven hours of our Sunday afternoon.  

You recall the boys' room before?


And the guest bedroom (oh, the irony, I just finished that room two weeks ago).


And now, they are switched.  Here is the new boys' room.  (It is not done yet, but its getting there.) 



One thing I love about the new arrangement is that the pictures of the boys are now over their beds, like they were in our old house.  This room did not have enough room for the white nightstand between the beds unless they blocked the closets, so out it went, and in came a black side table that was living in the garage. 

We took the sliding doors off the closet, and put the dressers inside the closet.  I would like to get some curtains hung to hide the view.  


The Expedit that was previously in the boys room moved in here, as did the Expedit that used to be in our living room.  (When we rearranged the living room, that Expedit moved upstairs to the guest room.).  We lined them both up along the wall to make an extra long bookcase/toy shelf/Lego display table.  


There you have it.  Its not the biggest room, but this functions much better than the old set up.  The guest bedroom also has a better set up, but it isn't fully finished yet and there are currently guests residing in it, so hopefully next week I will have pictures of it.  

Obviously there are still a few things left to do in here.
-The closet needs curtains.
-The long Expedit wall needs art.  Peter suggested a picture of a solar system, which I think is a fabulous idea.  
-the curtains are hung too high. The previous navy curtains were 96 inches and hung to the ceiling, and are now puddling on the floor in their new home, while these curtains are only about 87 inches long and so are floods in this room.  
-the door jamb is still half painted black that is peeling off
-I would like to either get madras plaid comforters or madras plaid curtains from Pottery Barn Kids for this room. 

3 comments:

  1. I say better late than never with switching the rooms. The boys new room looks so much better organized and livable than the other room.
    I would not worry about curtains for the cupboard - they will be annoying and the kids will just get them grubby . I would change the bed covers back to the navy blue ones you already have and I think your idea of adding a huge solar system on the wall would be brilliant.
    Kind Regards
    CAthy

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  2. I'm glad you made the switch. I love the boys' pictures over the bed. Are they happy with the switch as well?

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  3. It's pretty crazy what you can do with a new room and furniture arrangement. I've heard of many people that thought they had to add walls, remove walls, spend tons of money and then they saved it all by rearranging. It looks great in there! Love those big prints of the boys!

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