The room swap
The story begins 9 1/2 years ago...Our house was brand new. In the home building process, we had the opportunity to make the master bedroom closet smaller (more narrow) to make the bedroom that the closet abutted larger. We decided to make the bedroom bigger since the closet wasn't living space and the smaller closet didn't take away space in which to hang/ place clothes. It just made the closet narrower.
We had two children with one on the way. We decided to give Jacob the "big" bedroom since he was the oldest child at age four and had amassed quite a collection of toy cars and trucks. We gave two year old Abby the second largest bedroom and set up a nursery in the very small 4th bedroom. Babies don't need much space, after all. From time to time, when Alyssa, baby number 3, was a baby and a toddler (still too young to really notice or care about such things), I wondered if she would ever complain about having a much smaller bedroom than her brother and sister.
Alyssa, not a child to be easily placated when she perceives she's been wronged or denied something she believes she deserves, one day did notice the room size disparity and voiced her opinion regarding the injustice being imposed upon her by having the smallest bedroom. It should be noted that the at time she began voicing her opinion (about six months ago), many changes had transpired in the nine or so years that we'd been in the house. Two changes were most obvious: 1. Baby number 3 was not a baby anymore! She was an opinionated 8 year old with MANY toys. 2. Jacob was past his "cars and trucks" phase that defined his toddler and young childhood years. He was also past his "Star Wars/ Superhero" phase as well. His current phase was PlayStation playing. In the basement.
Alyssa commented on the unfairness of having the smallest room every day. She pointed out that she had toys in her room and Jacob did not. I pointed out why we gave Jacob the biggest room in the first place (which of course did nothing to placate her). One day I mentioned Alyssa's complaining to Jacob. "I'll switch rooms with her," he told me nonchalantly. "You will? You'll trade your large bedroom for her tiny bedroom?" I asked him. "Sure," he replied. "It's not like I spend much time in my room." Wow, it was mind blowing to me that he would switch with her. I brought it up to Donnie who said no way- it would be too much work. I then told Alyssa that she'd need to work to change her daddy's mind since he told me it would be too much work. I figured she'd get to him :-). And, she did! He agreed to switch their rooms.
We could have made the room switch very simple: take Jacob's "things" out of his room, take Alyssa's "things" out of her room and move them into the other person's former room. But that would have been too easy!! We had been talking about replacing the carpet in both of the smaller bedrooms with hardwood for several years. It just always seemed a pain to do and we lacked the incentive / drive to get it done. When we decided to switch the rooms, we thought it was the perfect tine to get rid of the carpet and install hardwood. We also decided that we'd get Jacob new bedroom furniture. He didn't need new bedroom furniture but his was quite old and was not a great quality set to begin with (although it looked nice).
Below is recap of the steps we took to get the room swap done (our way, the hard way, but well worth it!):
Alyssa's old room- the dimensions of the room are about 10' by 11'. This small space is the only space she had for her American Girl doll items
Some pictures of Jacob's old room. The dimensions are about 13' by 15'.
Back to Alyssa's old room. The wainscoting was in terrible shape. Many items in her room were pressed up against the wainscoting which did not help it hold up well...
...then there's the fact that an ornery 8 year old occupied the room. She apparently viewed the walls as her canvas.
It was very necessary to repaint the wainscoting (as well as paint the upper portion of the walls because Jacob did not want yellow walls!).
Abby's room. You can see her nasty carpet and her American Girl doll items. Abby told Alyssa that all of Abby's AG doll items could go in Alyssa's new room for her to play with.
Abby's room with the wood floor installed but her closet doors not yet reinstalled
This was an odd time- We had just sold Jacob's old bedroom furniture so it was time to move the girls' furniture into his room. Here is the big room with Alyssa's "stuff" in the room.
So much stuff
Jacob's room painted with Alyssa's furniture moved out of it.
Nasty carpet!
Abby's room empty of most of its stuff
Donnie and Jacob tore up the carpet out of both of the small bedrooms.
Jacob's room could not hold all of the girls' stuff so the hall bath became part bathroom and part storage.
The big bedroom with both girls' beds in it...
...and all their stuff
The subfloor in Abby's room. The picture doesn't show it well but the subfloor glistened. There was glitter everywhere on it! I also found sequins and beads. Love it!
...but still more work as we had to tape and then painted the quarter round and baseboards.
I love the half and half look! Mostly Alyssa's room at this point but remnants of Jacob remain...
We had to move Abby's furniture out of the big room and into her room with No More Nasty Carpet!
Alyssa's new big room. No new flooring or paint BUT she has plenty of room for Abby's and her American Girl doll items.
This Ikea storage chest used to be Abby's. We kept it in her closet for the girls' massive Barbie doll collection. I've since put away all of their Barbie doll items and thought that this would be perfect for American Girl doll items..
...and Lego's
Jacob's new room. He loves it!
Abby rearranged her room a little bit after Christmas
We had two children with one on the way. We decided to give Jacob the "big" bedroom since he was the oldest child at age four and had amassed quite a collection of toy cars and trucks. We gave two year old Abby the second largest bedroom and set up a nursery in the very small 4th bedroom. Babies don't need much space, after all. From time to time, when Alyssa, baby number 3, was a baby and a toddler (still too young to really notice or care about such things), I wondered if she would ever complain about having a much smaller bedroom than her brother and sister.
Alyssa, not a child to be easily placated when she perceives she's been wronged or denied something she believes she deserves, one day did notice the room size disparity and voiced her opinion regarding the injustice being imposed upon her by having the smallest bedroom. It should be noted that the at time she began voicing her opinion (about six months ago), many changes had transpired in the nine or so years that we'd been in the house. Two changes were most obvious: 1. Baby number 3 was not a baby anymore! She was an opinionated 8 year old with MANY toys. 2. Jacob was past his "cars and trucks" phase that defined his toddler and young childhood years. He was also past his "Star Wars/ Superhero" phase as well. His current phase was PlayStation playing. In the basement.
Alyssa commented on the unfairness of having the smallest room every day. She pointed out that she had toys in her room and Jacob did not. I pointed out why we gave Jacob the biggest room in the first place (which of course did nothing to placate her). One day I mentioned Alyssa's complaining to Jacob. "I'll switch rooms with her," he told me nonchalantly. "You will? You'll trade your large bedroom for her tiny bedroom?" I asked him. "Sure," he replied. "It's not like I spend much time in my room." Wow, it was mind blowing to me that he would switch with her. I brought it up to Donnie who said no way- it would be too much work. I then told Alyssa that she'd need to work to change her daddy's mind since he told me it would be too much work. I figured she'd get to him :-). And, she did! He agreed to switch their rooms.
We could have made the room switch very simple: take Jacob's "things" out of his room, take Alyssa's "things" out of her room and move them into the other person's former room. But that would have been too easy!! We had been talking about replacing the carpet in both of the smaller bedrooms with hardwood for several years. It just always seemed a pain to do and we lacked the incentive / drive to get it done. When we decided to switch the rooms, we thought it was the perfect tine to get rid of the carpet and install hardwood. We also decided that we'd get Jacob new bedroom furniture. He didn't need new bedroom furniture but his was quite old and was not a great quality set to begin with (although it looked nice).
Below is recap of the steps we took to get the room swap done (our way, the hard way, but well worth it!):
- Repaint the little bedroom. This included repainting the wainscoting white and the rest of the room blue (it had been yellow).
- Pick out hardwood floors. We found a beautiful hickory hardwood on sale at Lumber Liquidators.
- Get hardwood to our house. When LL failed to place us on the delivery schedule that we needed to be done by Christmas, Donnie rented a Home Depot truck to bring it to our house.
- Find installer for the floors. The first estimate, from LL, was super high. We found a great local handyman to install the floors.
- Place ad in Craiglist to sell Jacob's old bedroom furniture. We sold it to a family in Springboro at the best possible date (the day before we planned on moving all of the furniture out of the small rooms to be big room).
- Pick out and order Jacob's loft bed. Go to Ikea to look at and buy a dresser and media stand.
- Remove all of the furniture from both smaller bedrooms to the (now empty) big bedroom so that hardwood could be installed in the smaller rooms.
- Remove the carpet from both of the smaller rooms. Donnie and Jacob did this the day before the hard wood installer came to start the install. We could have had the contractor do this but he would have charged us $180.00. With Christmas spending high, this was a great way to save a little $$.
- Love walking on the new hardwood floors! But, we still had work to do before we could move furniture into the bedrooms. The contractor installed quarter round trim where the wood met the baseboards. We had to tape and then paint the quarter round and baseboards the same white color.
- Finally move furniture. Actually this entailed moving Abby's furniture out of the big bedroom to her bedroom (WITH NEW FLOORS!). Alyssa's bedroom furniture stayed in the big bedroom since it was her new room.
- Put together Jacob's new furniture. Donnie assembled Jacob's loft bed and the next day, he worked on assembling Jacob's dresser, media stand (forgot to mention we bought Jacob a TV so that he could play the PS in his room), and cabinet/ shelf.
All of the above happened from Dec. 6th - Dec.20th. Almost all of the work (that we did) occurred during the weekends since Donnie did so much of it and he worked every weekday from Dec. 6th from Dec. 20th. Let's just say thank goodness for online shopping because physically going to stores on the weekends in December to shop for Christmas gifts was not an option for us.
Alyssa's old room- the dimensions of the room are about 10' by 11'. This small space is the only space she had for her American Girl doll items
Some pictures of Jacob's old room. The dimensions are about 13' by 15'.
Back to Alyssa's old room. The wainscoting was in terrible shape. Many items in her room were pressed up against the wainscoting which did not help it hold up well...
...then there's the fact that an ornery 8 year old occupied the room. She apparently viewed the walls as her canvas.
It was very necessary to repaint the wainscoting (as well as paint the upper portion of the walls because Jacob did not want yellow walls!).
Abby's room. You can see her nasty carpet and her American Girl doll items. Abby told Alyssa that all of Abby's AG doll items could go in Alyssa's new room for her to play with.
Abby's room with the wood floor installed but her closet doors not yet reinstalled
This was an odd time- We had just sold Jacob's old bedroom furniture so it was time to move the girls' furniture into his room. Here is the big room with Alyssa's "stuff" in the room.
So much stuff
Jacob's room painted with Alyssa's furniture moved out of it.
Nasty carpet!
Jacob's room could not hold all of the girls' stuff so the hall bath became part bathroom and part storage.
The big bedroom with both girls' beds in it...
...and all their stuff
The subfloor in Abby's room. The picture doesn't show it well but the subfloor glistened. There was glitter everywhere on it! I also found sequins and beads. Love it!
Wood floors!
...but still more work as we had to tape and then painted the quarter round and baseboards.
More work! Donnie assembled all of the Jacob's furniture in the course of a day and half. Jacob helped him some.
We had to move Abby's furniture out of the big room and into her room with No More Nasty Carpet!
Abby's room!
Alyssa's new big room. No new flooring or paint BUT she has plenty of room for Abby's and her American Girl doll items.
This Ikea storage chest used to be Abby's. We kept it in her closet for the girls' massive Barbie doll collection. I've since put away all of their Barbie doll items and thought that this would be perfect for American Girl doll items..
...and Lego's
Jacob's new room. He loves it!
Abby rearranged her room a little bit after Christmas
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