<p>I like what PackMom has done. In our case, we’re really short of space in our small apartment, so we don’t have the option of leaving D’s room as is. </p>
<p>For years she has clung on to a rickety old metal bunk bed, refusing to let me buy a new one. So that’s the first thing I’m replacing! That way the room will be suitable for guests. I’m also going to rearrange the remaining furniture to create a little bit of a home studio for my husband. Increasing storage is also on the list. I still think of it as her room, but it has to do double or triple duty. I will leave her bulletin board and wall hangings intact. The wall color and carpeting will stay the same too. D’s not thrilled with all this, but she has accepted it as inevitable.</p>
<p>At least I’m not renting out her room, as a colleague of mine threatened to do!</p>
<p>We are planning for our son to move from his tiny room into his sister’s room after she leaves. His room will be the “library”/guest room, we’ll be getting a sofabed from IKEA for my D’s holiday stays.</p>
<p>Packmom:
Good move. My question is how DID you get your S to actually clean and purge stuff? I do think that once the college-aged student moves into an apartment, it is easier to transition the room. My D is in an apartment now and thus the room at our house becomes less her “home” and more a place to stay while visiting…so we have made a little more progress there.</p>
<p>S is still in a dorm (hopes to do study abroad in spring), so is thinking an apartment in his adopted city next summer. Maybe I’ll be redecorating then!</p>
<p>My S’s room went to the exchange students after his first semester in college, though he still goes back to it some summers when empty. His room is primo real estate in our house, spacious and a waste if left empty. His stuff is on the walls though, HS momentos now being replaced with items from his overseas travels, as I want him to feel he has a home somewhere. When he is here for a few weeks in transition, as for the last few, there is a smaller basement room he sleeps in. And stuff is being transitioned to stacks of plastic tubs, as he is off to China, not to return for a few years. </p>
<p>The Ds shared room will be left as is for at least a year, as the nearby one in college will be home frequently, hopefully bringing friends and roommates.</p>
<p>[see</a> my thread in the cafe ;)](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=395226]see”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=395226)
Older Ds room is actually in the basement- I kept her room as is while she was in college- but be warned- while I have hung onto old furniture in hopes that she would “need it”, the place she lives in now, doesn’t even have a living room! ( it’s a converted house & has a big hallway- a kitchen- bathroom and bedrooms) So even though she has been out of college for over a year, she has barely taken any of her stuff.</p>
<p>We have some friends who sold their house and moved into a condo when their youngest went to college, others who move kids around- at least I only have two kids :)</p>
<p>DH wanted to rent out the bedrooms when the DDs left. Both threatened to never come home again if they didn’t have rooms!!
Then we went to Golf Galaxy and DH spent some time in the Swing Trainer “room” complete with video and I saw the wheels turning…</p>
<p>We’re lucky, we have space. Planning to sell house in a few years- too big for two. Since son did not go through his closet during winter break last year, I did. Everything now organized and stored on closet shelves, he appreciated the floor space last summer, we did the annual cleanup after he left again so all the horizontal surfaces are bare except for lamps, some memorabilia… nice for trips home- less likely to lose things in clutter. The next owner will either have a lucky boy who wants “stratosphere” blue colored walls and ceiling (dark ceilings lessen light, BTW) or they can repaint. Another end of summer/after departure task we did was to remove a lot of books from his floor and put them where they came from on bookshelves in another room… This summer he couldn’t find his local library card until August- I had told him (he didn’t listen) I had put the stuff from the top of his dresser and desk in the empty top drawer.</p>
<p>Kept D’s room the same – just a lot cleaner! </p>
<p>OTOH, D (now a sophomore) herself offered to swap rooms with her younger brother. He’s thrilled - hers is by far the nicer room. I’m less thrilled… it’s proof positive that she’s slowly fleeing the nest.</p>
<p>Like katliamom, I am slowing cleaning out D’s “stuff” - and teasing her that she won’t recognize the room when she comes home to visit. I have finished with her 2 bureaus, and now on to the closet - or “the black hole” as it is referred to. I am only getting rid of things that I know she doesn’t care about and any clothes that she did not want to take with her or that she hasn’t worn in a few years. Last to go will be the light pink almost wall-to-wall carpet that we had put in 11 years ago when we moved into the house. She has beautiful hardwood floors underneath that will look so much better with just a few small area rugs. A few years ago, after a roof leak, we had her room repainted into its current hot pink and black, which sounds horrendous, but actually is quite nice. Our long-term plans are to eventually sell and move back into a condo/townhouse like we previously owned. After 8 years of condo living, I foolishly decided that it would be so much better to have our own house and yard. Now, both H and I are tired of the yardwork and snow shoveling, so we look forward once again not being tied down to the house so much. But, have promised D that if we end up selling, she will always have a room to come home to (even if it does become our home office/scrapbooking room) when she is not there.</p>
<p>allie’smom – i’m not nearly as brave as you. I haven’t tossed anything nor straightened out any closed storage things. The cleaning has all been on the surface only. Because I want to live.</p>
<p>Older D cleaned out her room before she went to college because we’re pack rats around here. (to others- it still may not have been clean but multiple trash bags left the room) Summer after freshman year she begrudgingly gave up the princess suite to her younger sister. I let them both paint and get new bedding and some new pieces of furniture as needed and that sweetened the deal. The older one basically made me a really nice guest room that she’ll sleep in when she comes home. The younger one (8th grader) loves the big room and no longer will have to share a bathroom with her brother (6th grader)- that would have made mornings horrible around here. They are both happy with their new arrangement.</p>
<p>Made the older D pack up her room into boxes so that her little sister could move in to it. What frosted the older one is that the younger one was taking room measurements and bringing paint chips home from Home Depot during the summer before the older one left!</p>
<p>She said it was like someone measuring you for a coffin, but you aren’t dead yet!</p>
<p>I would never change my kids’ rooms while they are at college (I have one college frosh and one in hs). It’s still their room, this is still their home. When they get a job and move into an apartment or get married, then we’ll redecorate their rooms to suit ourselves.</p>
<p>(Of course, we only have 2 kids in a 4 bedroom house, so we don’t really need the space.)</p>
<p>I will admit to storing stuff in DS’s room while he’s gone, but it will be removed before he returns home (items for goodwill, etc) and he will find it as he left it.</p>
<p>When I jokingly said that I was cleaning out her room and that she wouldn’t recognize it - it was simply meant that it will be clean and clutter-free for the first time in a long, long time. D is not exactly what one would call a neatnik, and like her dad - tends to be a pack rat. I am not changing her room, and it will always be her room as long as we live here - but now, I don’t have to close the door if we have company. She also swears that her dorm room is being kept neat and uncluttered, which hopefully is true as her roommate’s mom told me on move-in day that her D was very neat and liked everything in order.</p>
<p>Allie’smom - Isn’t it a wonderful feeling to walk by the room and see the surface of the bureau or the color of the rug??? Or to go by her bathroom and see a clean sink and mirror. I always told my daughter that when she was in her 90’s and passed away, she would be one of those people who they wouldn’t be able to find through all the papers & books in her house. I did not throw anything away but I did put everything in some kind of container. I will say, while she saves everything, she can always find it! </p>
<p>My D has also said she is being very neat because while she likes to keep every blasted book and magazine and paper, she doesn’t like anyone else’s clutter. So she said she is being very neat so her roommates stay tidy. </p>
<p>my oldest still has her room, but it is very different, and she is okay with that- but it is the room she swapped with her sister after she graduated HS, little sis had the small room forever and why waste all that space for 9 months as some sort of sacred ground</p>
<p>she knows this will always be her home, but she doesn’t expect us to keep her room a shrine to her absence</p>
<p>For her, its the warm cookies, the cold milk, the dogs, her dads fart jokes, the big tub, not the posters on the walls, nor the wall color, nor the sheets on the bed that make it her home</p>
<p>I would think a young adult wouldn’t need to hold onto a teen bedrooms decor</p>
<p>My girls enjoyed it when I surprised them with changes to their room when they were away at camps etc, they trusted me enough to do it right</p>