Wednesday, June 4, 2008

The Great Bedroom Experiment

When you are a family striving for sisterly love and togetherness what do you do?

Do you indulge the children with family outings that help them bond and create wonderful memories?

- OR -

Do you move your children from their separate bedrooms into a new space that forces them to spend more time together?

Jeff choose the latter.

We converted our multi-purpose guest room / office / play room / sewing storage into a bedroom for two. It's a big room, one of the biggest in our house and is perfect for this purpose.

Ariel's side

Belle's side

I love the dormers in this room, two dormers big enough for twin sized beds, so even though they are sharing a room there is a wall between them. There is also an enormous area that you can't see in these pictures. An area that is filled with all their toys. ALL their toys. It's messy, unorganized and contains a plethora of reasons not to go to bed or take a nap.

The girls seem happy, and why wouldn't they be. We put them to bed 30 minutes ago, and I can hear the pretend microwave beeping and little feet running across the floor above me. What I can't hear is bickering and fighting.

The sisters are united. They think they have fooled me into believing they are asleep instead of playing. I pretend I don't hear giggles and toys while the clock tells me that I put the kids to bed one hour earlier then usual. Oops!

The Great Bedroom Experiment is going well.

11 comments:

The Sports Mama said...

That? Is a fabulous idea!

Absolutely beats what I've always done with my boys...

Make them sit rightnext to each other on the sofa and watch The Care Bears Movie.

Always at least one full time through, but sometimes more if they still aren't getting along.

JLow said...

The wall between them is a wonderful use of the house's coincident. I personally would not have minded that setup when I was growing, sharing with an older brother.

louann said...

So great! Am sure they are loving it!

lattemommy said...

That really is a fabulous room for two kids to share - privacy and shared space all in one. (And, of course, now you have an "extra" room in your house!)

I hope the experiment continues to go well. Those girls will get through their rough patch, don't you worry.

Fine For Now said...

Oh I think this is GREAT! Plus when I was little I was afraid of the dark, but I never was afraid if my big sister was there :)

Anonymous said...

Tell Belle & Ariel I love their new room and can't wait to see it next visit!
Grammy

pb&j in a bowl said...

That is awesome. Perfect for 2 little girls.

SuburbanDaddy said...

Oh, you are very brave to try this experiment. I shudder to think what would happen if we left Thing 1 and Thing 2 together in the same room unsupervised. But it probably would force them to work things out on their own. Eventually.

MommyTime said...

Seriously, you need a Mothering Genius award for this one. I've contemplated the two in one room thing before, but always ditched the idea due to the inevitable playtime procrastination that would happen. NEVER would I have thought just to put them "to bed" an hour early to compensate. You are brilliant, pure and simple.

Anonymous said...

What a great idea.. I would have loved that if my mom did that with my sisters.. :)

Amanda said...

This is my other favorite post, along with the benefiber one. What a perfect room setup!