<p>Each night, our dog wanders among the 3 shrines. Pass me a hankie, please.</p>
<p>Regarding the OP’s dilemma, as each kid moved off to college, we gave priority to those remaining at home rather than the returning/visiting older one. I think it’s mighty hard for younger sibs to stay crowded and walk past at an empty, unused room 9 months of the year.</p>
<p>Sometimes we finessed it where there were only beds and clothes in a bedroom, and put all the “awake” stuff for all 3 kids (computer, bookshelves, homework, bookbags) in one common room downstairs with 3 desks as a “kid’s study.” In one house we even gave over the dining room for this purpose, since the eat-in kitchen was good enough for a 5-way dinner.</p>
<p>They liked it and it kept their bedrooms neater, or more accurately: their school papers never got intertwined with their piles of clothes. That might help with your kids’ sleeping schedules. The bedroom is only for sleeping and dressing, so it’s quieter than an all-purpose bedroom.</p>
<p>There are some good ideas here–and I’m considering the option of having one of the boys occupy the room just during the time the oldest is gone and then he can have it during the summer. It is a pretty huge and daunting task to completely switch them around. This might satisfy the younger boys until spring when we can open the windows for ventilation when painting.</p>
<p>Because D’s bedroom is on the third floor, which is on its own separate heating zone, we’ve left it for her for the 2 months/year that she lives here (August and January, more or less) and just shut that floor down except for weekends, when S1 and S2 hang out/play with friends in the sitting room outside D’s bedroom.
It’s a nice excuse for the shrine. . . .</p>
<p>When oldest son left, son #2 moved into his room. Whend Son #2 left, the room was converted into a nice guest room with two twin beds and sewing space for me. That way when both boys are home they each have a bed and no one is on the couch.</p>
<p>When son #3 goes to college, we’ll convert his room into another nice guest room/office with two twin beds, so we’ll have plenty of places for the boys and their friends to stay when they come to visit.</p>
<p>Our two older sons have annual housing commitments, so they’re not even home for the summer - just a week or two, here and there.</p>
<p>OTOH, son #1 came and stayed an entire semester in the guest room while he was interning. AAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!! My beautiful room! People kept asking me to mend stuff, and I said I wasn’t going to go into that mess to track down my sewing machine… He’s back at school now, and the room is NICE again.</p>
<p>“Refeathering the Empty Nest”, NY Times, September 20, 2007 discusses this issue. My computer skills are lacking – otherwise I would provide a link for the article here.</p>
<p>oh my gosh I don’t like this at all. I am now a freshman in college and once I started college late last August, my mom allowed my younger sister to take over my room…WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!! And when I come home for breaks and some weekends it’s annoying when my sister goes on her computer in my room after midnight! Bad move.</p>
<p>4 kids, 4 bedrooms (+ master for my parents), so no one’s had to share for about the last decade. My room–definitely the best of the kid rooms (hey, I’m the oldest…?)–had a bathroom attached. The agreement was that I’d share with my sister. </p>
<p>When it came time to remodel said bathroom (and boy did it need it!) part of the deal was that sister could continue having all access to my room–bathroom, bigger closet, etc–while I was away at college as long as it was my room again when I came home to visit (live only 100mi away, visit pretty frequently). She didn’t want to hassle with moving all her stuff, and she’d just redecorated her room, so she happily agreed and has continued to just use my bathroom not bedroom.</p>
<p>When I say “part of the deal” what I mean is that I pitched an absolute fit (a very mature, high school senior thing to do) at the idea that sister would take over my room upon my departure because everyone in my family knows my room is the only MY space in the entire house–I’m glad I “won” that argument!</p>
<p>Wow… (re post #27 & #28) – I can’t believe the level of selfishness of kids who expect their younger siblings to remain in a smaller, less comfy room while their rooms are empty and they are off at college, on their parent’s dime. </p>
<p>I’ve got news for the kids – it isn’t your room – it’s your parent’s house, and they have every right to put the rooms in their house to whatever use they want. The day you turned 18, your parents were freed of any legal obligation to provide you with free room and board.</p>
<p>My house has 3 bedrooms – a master bedroom, a good size second bedroom, and a very tiny third bedroom, not much bigger than a closet. My daughter occupied that tiny bedroom since infancy - it was always understood that she would take over the larger room when her brother went off to college. (If he had “pitched a fit”, I might have pitched my own fit over college tuition, and suggested that he keep his room, live in it, and attend the local community college).</p>
<p>As it happened, my daughter never moved into the larger room, despite its availability, because my son had left a mess in it (all his stuff), and d. wasn’t willing to work at cleaning it up. She would have had to box his stuff & move it into the smaller room). I offered to help her with the task, but I wasn’t going to do it for her … and so 5 years went by and the room assignments stayed the same.</p>
<p>We lived in different houses when kid #1 and #2 left. Before kid #1 was out the door, kid #3 was moving into his room (which was actually an office with no closet) He was getting away from kid #4 (messy brother) with whom he’d always shared a room. In our next house, kid # 2 had a basement bedroom. When she left, we rented the basement to a local college student. Kid #3 hasn’t even left yet, and kids #5, 6, & 7 (all girls who share one very large room) are already jockeying for kid #4’s room–which has a private bathroom.
They think kid #4 should take #3’s room, and they’ll take his. . .No shrines–kids aren’t attached to their rooms since we’ve moved quite a few times. </p>
<p>“The day you turned 18, your parents were freed of any legal obligation to provide you with free room and board.” LOL–I keep telling my oldest son (now out of college) this when he shows up for holidays/vacation. If he gets on my nerves (complains about the food, doesn’t wash the dishes, etc.) I threaten to call the police ;)</p>
<p>No squabbles over room here either…there’s enough to go around plus one to spare now that my youngest S decided to live in the “man cave” downstairs. Our issue is that I finished the basement off so that all of the kids, and their friends, would have a place to hang out and I could leave exercise equipment and larger projects, like quilts, set up down there without having the house look cluttered. He’s my messy kid and, while it’s nice not to have my blood pressure go up every time I walk through the house and see his “pig piles”, I can’t leave my projects laid out in “his” space for fear of damage. Now one side of my bedroom and half of my office/guest bedroom have been given over to this stuff:(</p>
<p>DS #1 is a junior 3000 miles away, and only visits a few weeks a year. My twin boys age 11 have NOT requested splitting up and one moving into the older brother’s room, and I am happy they still feel close enough to share a room electively. DD, high school junior, sleeps in DS #1 room most nights, as it is cozier than hers. She still uses her room for clothing storage, etc. DS #1 is returning this weekend for winter break, and DD will be displaced back into her own room.</p>
<p>Our house has one bedroom that is unusually small. When our son reached the stage where he had a 12-month off-campus lease and only came home for short periods, we did some room switching and it became his. </p>
<p>Now that he is a graduate student on the other side of the country and rarely comes home, it is often used for various types of temporary storage. The contents of his sister’s college room have resided there in the summer in boxes and bags.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t have appreciated my parents doing this, and I’m speaking as the youngest child in the family. It would have seemed my parents played favorites to the older siblings.</p>
<p>S1’s room became a joint bedroom/craft room when he left for school. He worked in other cities over the first two summers. Worked reasonably well, albeit a bit cramped, until he came home for a LOA. He leaves this weekend and we are hoping to get some furniture moved out of the room before he goes so that it is a more comfortable situation for both of us.</p>
<p>S2’s room is a mess and I’ve been in it once since he left. Have told him I’d like it cleaned up while he;s home, but I’m not holding my breath. (Would like to appropriate some of his closet space so DH can have more closet space in our room. Ah, what I’d give for a walk-in closet!)</p>
<p>S2 never asked to move into S1’s room, which is only slightly larger. I think he figured it was too much trouble to clean up.</p>
<p>I’m surprised noone has appropriated the guest room in the basement – but then again, there are no windows or exit doors, so I’m not sure I’d feel too comfortable making that a permanent situation.</p>
<p>Y’all stay put too much. We just try to move houses. In our mercy, we send kids at college or beyond our new street address. Usually they find us, but the new bedroom arrangement is our call.</p>
<p>S switched bedrooms with the girls the summer before he left. They now have the large bedroom, they are still happy to share. S will be home for breaks, and will probably summer intern or work locally for at least the first summer or two, so we have to park him somewhere.</p>
<p>There is a bedroom on the first floor that had been my mother’s. I am in the process of cleaning it out, and eventually it will be the guest bedroom/ S’s bedroom. By that time the girls will probably want their own rooms.</p>
<p>No, s does not want to give up his room yet. He’s home enough to still need it. Besides, he had the smallest room that no one wants but I can see it cleared out and line with storage shelves in the future!
D had the coveted large room w/sitting area and balcony. Now, lil D has already staked her claim on it but then she’s the youngest and will have the pick of 3 rooms!</p>
<p>2 kids, 2 bedrooms, but I basically left them as-is when they left for school. I have to clean up after one kid every time she leaves but last summer she cleaned out the room pretty well so there is not as much junk in there. But I have no guestroom, I can’t even imagine asking a guest to sleep on either of those creaky beds, but the kids do it without complaint when they are home. Of course, this is my first year with both of them out, so things may change … I would like to paint both those rooms one of these days - and get rid of all the SAT/AP prep books!!! D1 begged us to have bonfire when she was done with the testing, but we saved the books for D2, who is now in the midst of it all (11th grader at boarding school) - and wouldn’t you know it, she is testing on different subjects so the books are still multiplying.</p>