<p>I am having a civilized disagreement on another thread and this is in debate</p>
<p>So i ask, what are you doing with your college students’ bedroom? Are you changing it, keeping it, redecorating it, giving it another or shared use? If you have other kids, are you swapping things around?</p>
<p>Personally, when my Ds, go, the rooms with change…they will be welcoming, but will have a more guestroom, sewing room, sitting room feel as opposed to their messy teen room, I will of course keep their stuff, but it will be pared down</p>
<p>But others, which is fine of course, are keeping the rooms pretty much in tact</p>
<p>I may be very likely in the minority with my thoughts, so i am curious what others think and are doing</p>
<p>I want to swap rooms and give my 6th grader the “good” room upstairs. She’s at the age she shouldn’t have to share a bathroom with her little brother. I have been told by folks in the know, to wait at least a semester if not a year until I do it, so the collegian feels that her room is still hers. I was planning to let them re-do the two rooms but the older one doesn’t want to feel shoved out and the younger cries thinking of her sister leaving! So by around this time next year, we’ll switch them. (Same with my boys, I’m not being sexist, he’s a sophmore)</p>
<p>Keeping our daughter’s room exactly the way she left it. We don’t need the room, and she still has a ton of stuff in there. I would feel a little uncomfortable storing, or getting rid of it all, co-opting the room and using it for something else. If I really needed the room/space or had other kids, maybe I’d feel differently. My 2 cents.</p>
<p>I think it depends on how big your house is- if you don’t need the space- then keep it for your kid
when D started off- I did take over her desk a little but otherwise it was still her room- after all she was going to come for breaks right? I didn’t want her to feel like I was pushing her out.
She has been home every summer so it wouldn’t ahve worked if we had changed the room into something else- because when she was home- I wouldn’t have been able to use it.
Now however that she is a senior- I asked her to go through her stuff before she left last august cause I wanted to get rid of a lot of it-
did she ?
so I have had to go through it- but it still basically is her room, even though she won’t be coming back- maybe this summer I will get more motivated to redo it</p>
<p>I guess i am considering my college students at the time to be adults and to be able to handle changes made that suit the family as a whole</p>
<p>Guess I am in the minority. The room will still be her room, but it will be for others to use as well, why not? when she comes, it will totally be her space, but it seems silly to have a perfectly good room lay fallow and get old</p>
<p>She in no way feels I will be pushing her out, we have talked about it, her sister is chomping at the bit to get the larger room, and her “new” room will be more adult, very calming and modern, and welcoming, and hers when she is here</p>
<p>We have talked about the design and layout and how it will still have her “personallity” but it will become a family space when she isn’t around</p>
<p>Some may see me as heartless, but that is not the case. It is more practical and I think in a way, I am seeing that I will have an independent adult coming home and to me, the room can refect that</p>
<p>im a high school senior, but my parents keep my brother’s room as his, as they will mine next year. in my opinion, this is the best way to do things while they’re still in school, since they’re coming hom for breaks and weekends. once we graduate and move out of the house, they’ll probably become guest rooms, or possibly even remain ours. when im still a student, i’ll still regard this house as my home, and would be kind of offended if my parents switched it.</p>
<p>I think that is where if you need the space comes in- if you don’t need the space- you are probably going to be less likely to make such a big change ( heck there is more than one reason why we have been living in the same house for 23 years)
If D had , had the plummest room in the house and I had others coveting it, it would have been a bigger deal, but as it was, it is in the basement- and the space isn’t really needed that badly.</p>
I think that this is the root of the decision. If a parent feels that once a kid hits 18 that they are independent, then it makes sense to reallocate the room. Our experience, though, is that S1 is not really independent. He relies on us for financial needs, and I expect that he will be home most summers. I actually would not be too surprised if he landed at home for a period of time after graduation, while waiting for grad/professional school options. I’ve told our kids that they always have a home with us – though they’d have to live by our rules.</p>
<p>I kept my older S.'s room as his until he graduated from college and was out on his own—then redecorated as guest room. My D. and S. in college still have their rooms as is when they are home on break, summer and so forth. However, I agree with other posters, if I needed the room I might have done differently and all 3 rooms were essentially equal so no one wanted to move to a “better” room.</p>
<p>Just read sjmom’s post after I posted and she has good point. Our oldest did come home after college for a few months while he job searched and saved up some money for down payment on house. (He also had to follow house rules!)</p>
<p>I intend to make a mini-shrine in my d’s room with photos, flowers and I’ll burn candles and cry until she comes home.<br>
Her sister has already started to move her stuff in.</p>
<p>i understand the financial needs, we will be footing the bill, and of course this will always be a home for them, do not think I am shooing them away</p>
<p>The room with always be there for Ds, but it may be changed to suit our changing family situation, and I think most kids will actually get that as they get older. </p>
<p>I mean, does a 24 year old coming home from grad school for a summer really need to have all their highschool stuff laying around? I would assume they have changed</p>
<p>Maybe my Ds are different. They look forward to the change and would not at all be offended if their room was rearranged, things put away, walls painted, so long as it was clean, welcoming, had space to crash and put away clothes and the bed or futon was comfortable, and was home</p>
<p>we do have friends with differnt experiences though-
for example, college prof and his wife who sold their house in a nice residential neighborhood, once their boys were in college and moved into a penthouse condo downtown- they love it- but I am not sure how the boys feel about it</p>
<p>DH moved his band equipment into DS’s room and practices there. He also occasionally sets up his laptop in S’s room, saying it’s too great a distraction on his own desk. At the end of the summer the room will get a major cleaning, the chess trophies and other treasures will go into boxes and I will be putting it into the rotation for “bed and breakfast” during football season. (We live in a college town.)</p>
<p>D is only a junior in high school, but I am already thinking of how I’m going to modify her room. We live in a big city and space is at a premium. She has a bunk bed that is falling apart that she refuses to part with (she’s very sentimental). So at some point I am going to replace the bunk bed with a nice regular bed and rearrange the room a bit. I also plan on adding storage. So the room will function as a guest room with lots of storage, and it will still contain some of my daughter’s stuff. I will keep as much as possible, within reason, so she can stay there comfortably when she’s home. That’s the plan, anyway!</p>
<p>Wow. We are actually down-sizing and moving to a much smaller house which we are designing and building. But I still included a bedroom in the design for our only D. Although I’m enthusiastic about her growing up and going away to college, I KNOW I’m not ready to accept that she won’t be coming home. And home includes a bedroom for her. Only this time instead of having a border with kitty cats all the way around the walls and a twin bed, we’re planning a grown-up room with a double bed in case she gets married some day and comes home with new hubby to visit.</p>
<p>Although we have teased our D and S1 about the plans that we have for their rooms, we have not done anything to them. When D went away, neither of her brothers seemed interested in having her room, which is a little bigger. They are all perfectly content with their own space, and so that is how it will be until they each move out after college. (Much as we love them all, we are assuming they will move out when they get jobs??!!)</p>
<p>When son goes away to college, we will allow his younger sister the option of staying in her own room or moving to brother’s (which is larger & has a larger bed–double instead of twin). This week while brother is in Australia with marching band, she’s trying out brother’s room.<br>
When I was away, every year when I came home for the summer, there was less & less space for me (had lots of sibblings & their stuff expanded to fill the space). When I finally finished school after 6 years of being away & returned to HI, there was NO room for me to uppack for work so within a month or two, I moved into an apartment of my own–the ONLY kid in our family to do so before getting married! I lived alone in my apartment for 4 years before I got married & loved it! I was not upset about having been squeezed out of the house & in retrospect it was a very good thing.</p>