A Retrospective: 4. The Bedrooms. 2007-2014

For my blog's eighth anniversary, I decided to take us on a tour of the changes I've made to our house over the years. This is the fourth in the series. The last areas to be featured were the service areas: The Bathrooms, Laundry Room and Pantry, 2007-2014. If you want to start at the beginning, go here: The Front and Back Yards, 2007-2014. As well, as they are published, each retrospective is also available under the House Tours tab above.

There are three bedrooms in our small house.

There's a fairly small one the main floor (it counts as small because you can just barely fit a double sized bed into it) and two larger ones, upstairs. (Both of them accommodate a double bed--or bigger--nicely.) Here are the floor plans:

These posts are lengthly, so it seemed a good idea to truncate them. Please click through to read through.

The Pile in the Hall

When I cleaned my son's room last weekend, I very carefully did not show you the pile I'd made.

Right here, right outside his doorway.

It sat there Monday.

It sat there Tuesday.

It sat there Wednesday.

Finally, on Thursday, (yesterday) I got tired of walking around it. I wanted to close the closet door, too.

That's me standing in the doorway to the bathroom. Hi!

So, I got rid of it.

The disgustingly dusty Lincoln Logs with soldiers in the dustpan got upended into the kitchen sink and everything was washed. There's no "before." It was that bad.

After playing with them for a few minutes after school, my daughter helped me bag them up for donation.

I had to wait until my son got home for permission to put things like the boxes his Bionicles came in into the garbage and the recycling bag. He was OK with it. After that, I made short work of what was left: the volcano was dusted, wrapped and placed in the games room, the clothing was put into the laundry hamper, and the storage container repurposed.

Ta Da!

Sorry. Not exactly stellar photos. Hard to do in the evening.

Much better.

my poor floors!

This was hard for me. I'm not sure what's going on in my head, either.

It doesn't sound reasonable once I say it out loud, but all day I was in that anxious state I get when I think "I got nothing done, today."

I'm supposed to be working in the basement, on the shelves. That's the focus. And while I did work there and do a few things, all day long I really felt like I got nothing done. This project wasn't on a to do list. It wasn't an anticipated part of the project "cleaning my son's room." It wasn't a decluttering project, or an organizing project. It was just stuff in the hallway. It was just left overs. And because of that, I resist doing these sorts of things. (There's a similiar situation currently in my dining room.)

That's why I took pictures and wrote this blog post--so I have proof I really did do something today and it counts.

(There's a reason the word "therapy" is a part of my blog's name!)

Anyway, it was a pile--and I cleared it. That qualifies me for a link up to Project Simplify. Yay!

Spring Cleaning: The Boy's Room

My son went away to camp this weekend. He left Friday after school and got home Sunday after supper.

Friday, I decided I would clean his room. It hadn't had a proper clean in a long time. Probably years.

My son's room is on the main floor. I saw this everyday.

One of the reasons for that is that he has too much stuff crammed into the room. Like his mother, he is very good at making every inch of space count. It is difficult to make his bed because it is against the wall and hemmed in by a table and a filing cabinet. It is hard to clean his window because the bed is in front of it. It is impossible to clean the floor because his furniture lines the walls.

 

The door is to the right, above. We're moving round the room from right to left, opposite the way I cleaned it.

It is also visually overwhelming to me. He doesn't like the look of "bare" walls, so he's taped up his artwork, posters, and schoolwork. Anything he considered important, he just taped to the wall.

About a year ago, I pinned this photo. 

source: Oh-Dee-Doh. (Now: Apartment Therapy/Family)

I may have shown it to my son. I think I did--and I think he signed off on it. I bought the dignitet wire from IKEA to put it in his room.

But nothing happened--except more things got taped to his walls.

This table is his "movie studio" for the stop action films he makes with his bionicles.

 

 

 The Bionicle Tower.

Until Friday night that is, when, after seeing my son off to his survival camp, my husband and I made a quick run to IKEA to pick up the corner pieces so I could run the wire along three walls of his room. As well, I needed a break. I had been working in his room for several hours at that point, quite glad I had started too. Especially when I ran into dust and dirt like this:

and this.

That's from under the bed. And that's an under the bed box. Horrid things. Avoid them if you can.

Because his room was so full and because I was working by myself (my husband works Saturdays) and because there was no place to put all of his furniture were I to try to move it, my approach was time consuming and not recommended.

Before I started, I stripped his bed and took down the curtains. I loaded the washing machine.

I began with vacuuming the carpet. Then, I started on his door. I took everything off both sides and then I scrubbed it. I moved behind the door. I took everything off the walls and I scrubbed it. Then, I vacuumed his floor in front of the newly washed walls. Then, I scrubbed the floor.

When it came time to do the bionicle tower, I moved everything off the desk into a laundry basket which I put on his bed. Then, I put the red bins on the desk.

I vacuumed the bottom of the unit. I took everything off the unit. (Actually, all he had was a print out of the periodic table taped to its side.) I washed it. Then I moved it. I vacuumed the floor--I could not stand in the dust. Then, I took everything off the walls above it. (A target from range practice). Washed the walls. Washed the floor.

Move furniture. Vacuum the floor. Remove items from the wall, wash wall, remove tape, wipe down the wall again, wash floor.

Lather, rinse, repeat. I took frequent, but short breaks.

It took all day Saturday to deal with the walls behind and beside his bed.

I used goo gone, spray cleaner, a scraper, many cloths, and a lot of elbow grease to get his walls clean. Paint comes off more easily than tape residue! I learned why I had never been allowed to put anything up on my walls.  And now, neither is he.

On Sunday, I was able to clean the desk, dresser, and table. I vacuumed his mattress and remade his bed--but not without another quick trip to IKEA to get more clips for his wire, and a red sheet to act as a "dust cover" for his box spring. I learned why box springs have dust covers. And now, so does his.

I wasn't home when he arrived, but according to his Dad, when he saw the wire with his artwork, he pronounced it "Cool."

This is now the view from the hallway. Much better, even though there's fresh laundry on that table.

There were times this weekend when I actually questioned my fitness as a parent to have let things get so bad in his room. The lines between his space and my house and whether he should clean it or I should, and how far I can push a fifteen year old, and when do I need to let it go and when do I need to insist are very blurry. You could even say, they're very dusty. (Boo, hiss.)

But, I am so glad I did this.

Let's take another turn around the room, shall we?

I didn't touch a thing on the bulletin board or the shelves.

 

But I did get the filing cabinet out of there!

 

 

 

And that was my weekend. This Saturday? I am going to insist he dust and vacuum. No time on the X-Box until it's done. Wish me luck.

Project Simplify: My Daughter's Room

I have been nagging my 11 year old daughter for a few weeks now, off and on, to clean her room.



I'm really not sure the best way to handle this. She's a pack rat and she doesn't put things away. The goal, you see, is not a clean room, though that is a worthy goal. The goal is to teach my daughter to clean her room. I didn't learn until my thirties and then there was a whole house to clean and a husband and two babies underfoot.

Sometimes I wonder, should I just do it to set the example?



Should I just let her do it herself so that she learns how to make her own decisions?

Or, should we do it together--Me, sweeping the floor and chivvying her along, she, sorting through piles and telling me the story behind every. little. thing? We have done this in the past--and it's time consuming. I really didn't ant to spend most of my day Saturday in a tussle with her.

We needed a different approach.

Friday morning, when I went upstairs to reconnoiter her room, I was instantly overwhelmed.



I didn't quite know where to start. Me! The Organized One! Me! the chivvier! Me, the Mom.



So, I decided simply to begin. Grab a trash bag and turn left.



Pick up the trash.

Pick up the obviously dirty laundry.

I decided I would clean off all surfaces except her desk. It's a disaster of too many delayed personal decisions which I could not make, even if I wanted too.

I piled everything in categories on the bed: clothes to decide whether to put away or put in the hamper, papers to sort whether to keep or let go, and her stuffies.



Forty five minutes later, her room looked like this:







She walked in Friday night and exclaimed, "I have a floor!"

Saturday morning, it was her turn. She was diligent. I'm not entirely sure what she was so busy at, but she started around 10 am and stopped at three with only a couple of half hour breaks.

Beside the bed:


By the dresser (the laundry basket in the hallway contains her donate pile)



The desk:



And, finally, the bed:



Does the room look the way I would want it? No.

Did she declutter a lot? No, but some: A few articles of outgrown clothing, a few toys.

Did she take responsibility for her stuff? Yes, for example, she went through a huge collection of Girl Guide crests and decided which ones she wanted to keep and which she will trade at the next Jamboree, she sorted through her headbands, and she told me not to buy her anymore stuffed animals! (Yay)

So, I let her invite a friend over for the rest of the afternoon.

Verdict: I think this new approach worked well. I'll try it again, hopefully not too soon!

Organizing with Kids--Son's Bookcase

I am declaring the organization of my son's bookcase complete!


(yes, that's the after shot.)

We worked on it in spurts since Organizing with Kids from Simplify 101 began at the beginning of the month. Here is what it looked like then:


My thirteen (yikes, almost 14!) year old did most of it himself. I would walk into his room, late in the afternoon, antsy to do something and he'd cheerfully stop whatever he was doing and start making decisions as I handed him whatever was on a shelf. Then, I'd leave him to it as I went looking for a Give-away bag and a Garbage bag.

Yesterday, I cleaned all the shelves we cleared--so relieved to have done that! There was lots of sneezing.

I would liked to have put more things under his bed--or stored them differently--at least separated the "display" items from the "stored" items (Bionicles battling in front of books, for example, while dramatic, looks messy to me!) but he didn't feel the need. So, I left it the way he likes it.

It is, after all, his room.

I Said I Would....

I promised my boy about a year ago that I would put his CD holder on the wall.

Today, I finally kept that promise.

The timing is kind of crazy as we finalized the shades of blue and red we'll use in his room today. I put together three combinations of blue and red I thought would work and he picked one of them.

When we paint (which will be in October. I plan to do it on a weekend when he is at Scout Camp) I'll just leave the holes in the wall!

That corner is looking good.

Before:



and now:


Just a bit more work on those baskets in the bookcase and that corner will rock!

Boy's Room: Red and Blue

Currently, my son's walls are yellow, Hawthorn Yellow by Benjamin Moore to be exact. But you'd never know it to look at them.

They are plastered in posters, drawings, a craft or two, pictures cut from cardboard, and even a shot up target and a Yahtzee score card.

I have been searching the web to find better ideas for displaying his stuff. One idea I absolutely love is this one:


I thought I might string it around his walls, about two thirds to three quarters of the way up and then paint a big fat red stripe above it to "anchor" it and give the whole thing a "border."

Something like this with the Dignet "wire" placed at the bottom edge of the stripe:

source: HGTV

In fact, I must have seen this picture before because this is exactly what I was envisioning, from the beige on the walls to the blue comforter on the bed. I found this picture only last night, though.

It turns out, however, that he is more interested in my painting his walls blue than he is in a tidy display of his "art."

So, blue and red? How can this work?

There are lots of ways it doesn't work.

source When my son saw this in Google images, he said he thought it was made from Lego. Need I say more?

I'll spare you the rest of the images of rooms which to me do not work.

It's tough to balance these colours. My son wants a particularly strong blue, too. No sophisticated navy. Nothing pale. No, he wants this:

Big Country Blue by Benjamin Moore.

I was incredibly lucky to stumble upon these two images from different blogs.

The first image is a room designed by Evelyn Benatar.

source: Simplified Bee

The room below was created by a different woman on a different blog. Her son, though three, loves blue and red just as much as my thirteen year old. Moreover, the blue they like is similar.

source: Four Walls and a Roof

These two images tell me that the blue my son has chosen needs to be toned down considerably. It needs a lot more grey in it in order to work. As well, this colour scheme needs a lot of white to keep it from stifling the room. Here, in the second room, the decision was made to restrict the blue to one wall and paint the rest white. That is certainly an option. It makes sense to run the dignet only along one wall.

I can't believe I found this:

source:Cool Kids' Rooms

You know, maybe, this could work.