<p>Ok, S is in his sophomore year and he doesn’t come home as often (he’s 2 1/2 hrs away). His room looks like a time capsule of his former HS life. It needs a makeover!</p>
<p>I know some of you have already transformed your kid’s rooms. How did you handle packing away vs. Tossing things? Did you ask your kid to do most of it? S will have to determine what’s important to him, of course. He will be home for a few days next week on spring break so it would be a perfect time to start.</p>
<p>My daughter would freak out if I touched anything in her room while she was away. She cleaned and straightened before she left for college last summer and I haven’t changed anything but the sheets.</p>
<p>Do you need to use the room for another purpose? If not, why bother making the changes? It may be upsetting to your son, and it doesn’t seem that you gain any important benefit to compensate for that. </p>
<p>When my son was in the late stages of college and no longer coming home regularly (he lived off-campus and had a 12-month lease), we did need his room for another purpose, and he was quite cooperative with packing away much of his stuff and sleeping in a different (tiny and inconvenient) room on the rare occasions when he was home. But I think he would have been upset if we had transformed his room or evicted him from it just because we didn’t like the way it looked.</p>
<p>My son moved out…actually moved out for good to a new job in a new city. His room looks like he just woke up and ran to the store and will be back any minute. I have no idea how to tackle this. Boxes and duct tape I suppose. 22 yrs of his life in a 10 x13 foot space. Even too overwhelming for him I suppose.</p>
<p>My kid threw away stuff she didn’t want. There are still books, yearbooks, etc… Not much.</p>
<p>No, we don’t need his room for any other purpose. In high school, he saved everything from ticket stubs to newspaper clippings to magazine pics and stuck them all over his walls. His college dorm room looks nothing like it! It is very neat and organized with the obligatory pile of dirty clothes in the corner, of course.</p>
<p>I will be asking him for permission to move things around but I don’t want to get into his stuff. The space will still be his as long as he wants it but I’d like it to be more neat!</p>
<p>Call him and ask if he minds if you take down the clippings and pictures off his wall, and if he wants to keep them. He might appreciate your doing it for him. </p>
<p>Then if he’s home over the summer you can say - hey, I think your room could use a coat of paint - and let him help you choose if he cares.</p>
<p>Throw his stuff in a big plastic bin and stick it in the basement. When he comes home from college, he probably won’t even think twice about the stuff not being in his bedroom. During the summer, he can sort through the bin.</p>
<p>Our kids tossed their own “stuff”. Both did so gradually over their college years. WE didn’t move anything ourselves.</p>
<p>Our house shifted and left a large crack running down one corner of son’s bedroom. So, we had to fix it and repaint the room and fortunately cover up the “lovely” neon green paint that son picked to match his red carpet when he redecorated in high school. I took all of his posters, ticket stubs, etc and placed them in a box. He only put up one or two of them again when he came home for winter break. Fixing up the room is a good reason. I don’t recommend taking everything down and converting it to a sewing room as my mother did during my first semester freshman year. I still remember my shock 30 years later.</p>
<p>When ours left we gave them several trips home to start cleaning out. After a decent interval we warned them we would finish if they did not. Whatever was left we made the decision what to toss, send to GW or box for their later review. Boxes are in the basement and that is the next big thing as they start to settle into their own houses. </p>
<p>The only one not finished is DD and we already have 2 guest rooms we have redone so I am not in a big hurry to push for that final clean out. We still use it for guests when we need to and she has most of her stuff out. If DH wants an office we will probably do the final one.</p>
<p>I don’t think you are asking how to repurpose the room, but rather how to help your son make the transition into adulthood. You see memorabilia that you recognize as having importance to your son in HS, but may not have the same emotional draw now.</p>
<p>Our daughter is not likely to clear her room of her childhood keepsakes either. I’m assuming she’ll need prodding in that direction when the time comes. (She’s a sophomore in college.) Our younger D has been purging her room since she was in third or fourth grade, so right now it looks like a “grownup’s” room, even though she is only 16.</p>
<p>If you are like me, YOU are ready to get rid of the stuff. And if your S is like me, he won’t be able to do it without some prodding. I remember not being ready to break the ties with my childhood, in regards to the items in my own room, until I was forced to. My parents built a new house when I was a junior in college, so that was the perfect time to make the transition.</p>
<p>I would start talking to your S about it, maybe in dribs and drabs, depending on how receptive he is about removing the clutter. If he’s resistant, then by talking about it from time to time, he will eventually become comfortable with the idea, and see that it’s part of the growing up process.</p>
<p>We changed things in both S’s rooms gradually…new bedspread/curtains to start.
Then when they’d come home I’d ask about keeping/throwing away various things to start paring it down. The final clean-out came last summer when we had our house painted and re-carpeted in order to put it on the market for sale. That prompted the rest of the closet clean-outs and taking the old cork boards (full of pictures,ticket stubs,etc), football jerseys and sports team pics off the walls. I saved what I thought they’d like to keep or at least have the option to. The giant tub of Legos and Hot Wheels cars is still in it’s place on the shelf in S1’s closet. I’m saving those for possible future grandchildren! S1 is 25 and owns his own home in a diff. state now. S2 is 22, a college senior who will grad. this year. Neither seemed bothered by the re-do. They knew we had to do it to sell the house…which hasn’t happened yet…ugh.</p>
<p>Agreed. I’ll wait for S to come home for spring break to ask him what memorabilia he’d like to keep. Last summer before he left for school, he went through his closet and got rid of a few items such as HS t shirts, old essays…I pulled some of them out of the trash/donations and put them away in storage. </p>
<p>My dad kept the very first story I ever wrote. I was in kindergarten.</p>
<p>I wou,d suggest getting some bins and bags for storage and donation. This way it will be easy. My girls knew I was changing their rooms, more neutral o guess. They switched rooms when oldest went to college so younger d got the bigger room. That was the time we purged a lot. They don’t miss their trophies, papers, stuffed animals etc. They just want a place to hang their ctohes and sleep. I took pictures and put in an album the trophies etc. This keeping a room like they are still in hs, to me, is kind of silly. </p>
<p>To make their rooms special when they do come home, I have new slippers, flowers, candles, spa creams, etc. Works for them.</p>
<p>My kids kind of laugh when they see some of their friends childhoodnrooms with all the bad posters, 4th grade trophies and stuffed animals. </p>
<p>My friends son was like, sure mom, do what you want, all I need is a great bed and my rugby stuff.</p>
<p>I know very few parents who kept the shrine like room.</p>
<p>Great thread. DD is a junior in college and DS heads off in the fall. DD was just home for spring break and I think that each time she comes home, it is getting closer to her being on her own. We have gone through stuff more than once, but to is getting to the point where the basement tubs are sounding better and better.</p>
<p>I’ve been working on clearing out the basement the last year. I’d much rather his stuff be in his bedroom than in my basement! I had good intentions to clean out his closet when he left freshman year. I was one of those really distraught parents; I just couldn’t do it…</p>
<p>You all are more motivated than me. My excuse is we have 5 bedrooms; it’s at the end of hall upstairs, we don’t need the room, and I don’t see it. He graduated in May, he’s back here working, and going through the long ap process for his dream career. His room? Well…it still has the framed print where he won the Pinewood Derby, the 4-H trophies, his bulletin board, the Pinewood Derby cars, and 3 mounted deer heads.</p>
<p>When I bought my first house, my mom boxed <em>everything</em> of mine and delivered it to my spare bedroom. Guess I’ll use the same plan!</p>
<p>We kept D1’s room the same for 3 years after she went off to college because we didn’t need her room and we were living in the same place. Two years ago when we sold our house due to job relocation, we packed up all of our kids’ stuff and put it in storage. When D2 goes off to college this fall, we may move to a new place, so we will need to pack up her stuff. But nevertheless, we will have a room for D2 with all of her stuff untill she is out of college. D2 is a very good sport and very adaptable. She is supportive of where ever we may end up.</p>
<p>We kept the shrine. DS’s childhood bedroom is unchanged, with the bright green paint he chose at age ten, the red metal bunk beds he chose at age 3, Legos and Playmobiles in plastic containers, a few stuffed toys, etc.</p>
<p>When we added on a first floor bedroom/bathroom for H and me, we renovated the other 2 2nd floor bedrooms, thinking of one as our son’s grown-up room and the other as a guest room. When kids come to visit, they sleep and play in our son’s childhood room. I am thinking that if we have grandchildren at some point, we will be ready! I did put some of his childhood things in his grown-up room, notably the stuffed Hedwig he won at a Harry Potter trivia contest. Memories.</p>
<p>We have three bedrooms, so not a lot of extra space. S1 is pretty unemotional about tossing stuff, but I have boxed a bunch of things (essays, stories he write when he was small, awards, etc.) because <em>I</em> am not ready to let them go. Am repurposing his room for my sewing/art area, and have bought a sofa futon so that he has a larger place to sleep when he comes home, but it has a smaller footprint in the room than his single bed.</p>
<p>S2 and I painted his room like a jungle, and he painted animals on his closet door with me (he was six at the time). I can’t bear to paint over it.</p>