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Rethinking How We Use our Space: A Shared Bedroom and a Family Craft Space?!?

This weekend we had a big garage sale and finally let go of all our baby/little-little kid items. It hurt a bit to see some of it go, but it also feels good to free up some space in our house again. It has seriously got us thinking about how we use our space right now, and about what the best way to use it might be…Rethinking How we Use our Space Shared Bedrooms and a Family Craft Room at thehappyhousie

But now we have sold our change table and crib literally out from underneath our youngest son which has left our little guy’s room looking a little like this…P1120376

Maybe you spotted the clothes on the floor after I had to hastily remove them from the drawers because someone wanted to buy the dresser. So much for pre-planning! Our youngest is about to turn three and definitely ready for a ‘big boy’ (twin) bed. The day we sold the crib we picked up a mattress for him and now have some BED-DIY action planned.

But the question is – do we keep him in his room? Or try him out sharing with his older brother?  I have always thought it would be fun to have the boys share a room – I think I have unrealistic visions of cute brotherly-bonding time. I mean, check out these adorable shared spaces – all VIA Pottery Barn Kids

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See – look at those boys playing together. I am sure that sharing a bedroom would lead to complete blissful harmony and brotherly love. How could they ever fight with such beautiful bedrooms? Right.

The added bonus of a shared bedroom for the boys is that we could then use the other upstairs bedroom as a family crafty-craft space. Just imagine…

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Via

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Found on Pinterest – anyone know the source? Looks like Ikea to me…

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Via

Look at the perfect harmony in that home, all because they have a gorgeous family creative space. Haha. But still… it does look pretty amazing:)  I could see the boys and I spending a lot of time in there together and not constantly mucking up the (one) dining table we have.

So we are giving it a try to see how the room sharing goes before we make any more firm decisions. As for now the temporary solution is to place my youngest son’s new bed (aka mattress) on the ground in his brothers room…

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I had to move some things around to accommodate the mattress. You may remember that I have been working on my oldest son’s room and it still has a ways to go…

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This little adventure could throw a major loop into my bedroom design plans – I wonder how it will go?!? I think the number one thing to ensure family harmony is not, in fact, beautiful rooms, but instead good sleep (shocking revelation, I know)…. so that will be the true deciding factor.

If you have children, have they ever shared a room? Any tips for me?? Are you reworking the way you use any of the spaces in your house?

Thanks for reading. And remember my housie friends, HOME isn’t built in a day. Enjoy the journey!

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40 Comments

  1. I have 5 children. The older two had separate rooms when they were 7/8 yrs old because they were boy/girl. They are now grown, daughter off too college, son about to graduate and go into Air Force, so now I just moved two of my boys (age 17 and 11) into the same room, and my 3 yr old and 2 yr old share a room (girls), so now I am planning my Crafting room in the room that is left and the boys room will turn into a 3 kid room for when the kids come home to visit. I am so excited! I shared a room with my sister all through growing up. When we were younger, we shared a bed and as we got into high school, we shared a room but had separate sides of the room to ourselves. There were times when we fought, but for the most part, we were very close. I see most of these comments are from last year. I would love to see if you ever decided to do the family crafting room 🙂

  2. We were faced with the same situation a while back. We opted to separate them into their own rooms, but you know what? Their back to sharing a room again!!!! Its good that your trying it out first and see how it works. For younger kids, sharing is the way to go, but once one is a teen, that one will want a personal space. Good luck Krista!

  3. I am in the same boat , Krista! We are ready to put my 2 yrs old together with my 4 yrs old son in the near future. I love the cute ideas that you listed above for shared bedrooms. Thanks for sharing!

  4. Ok seriously Krista… you have me thinking this would be PERFECT for my place too!!! Eekkk… I wonder if the girls would mind sharing a room? However… I just finished all the pieces for Ema’s room… Ugh..

  5. I love this idea! I have no real experience with shared rooms, but I know my brother has 3 boys and the older two wanted to share a room for quite a while (even though they could have had their own rooms). I say go for it!!

    1. Hi Kelly! So far it is going well with the sharing – they certainly need to interact and be together more and I think they are playing together more too. I guess it is a ‘wait and see’ but I am pretty much already in craft room planning mode after four successful nights!

  6. What! decorating is not the secret to happiness and well behaved children?
    Congrats on the Purge, I hope the experiment works and they do share – those pics make it look sooo good and what you have already done with your son’s room is so cute. Make it happen!

    1. Thank Nicole. After changing all this up I am finding more things we should have sold. Thing there might need to be another garage sale soon already!!

  7. Love the inspiration rooms, especially the SAM & JACK! I can’t wait to see how it works and what yall decide to do.

    1. I know – the SAM and JACK lettering is what does it for me. Our boys’ room is almost that same grey too. We will definitely have more of a nautical feel but I am plotting how to DIY some giant letters asap!

    1. Lol Laura! I know some people who started their second baby right away in the first one’s room and they love it. Now their children don’t want to be separated!

  8. 🙂 I love all the inspiration pictures Krista! sharing a bedroom must be fun for little boys, my brothers used to share a bedroom when they were growing up and I was always jealous about it! I’m the oldest and only girl! I love the “SAM & JACK” on the walls; that would be a great project to do! & having a craft room is great too, the problem with mine is that it’s not kid-friendly and every time I have my son with me in that room I don’t get much work done because I have to keep on eye on him but he’s still so small but if you do yours and make it kid-friendly I’m sure it will look great and you can spend hours there with them! 🙂 can’t wait to see what you will do! 🙂

    1. I agree Ingrid- the large lettering is sooo cute. I am totally plotting a DIY for it right now since they cost $59 US each letter!! That would be almost $500 US dollars to do my son’s names. Ahh!! I definitely have to account for making the craft room kid friendly!!

  9. I have a boy and a girl so they never shared a room. Honestly though, hopefully your kids won’t spend a bunch of time there so it should be OK to share. I wanted my kids, especially as they grew older, to be around and not closed in their rooms. No computers or tvs in the bedrooms was always my rule. Good luck with whatever you decide!

    1. I agree Ann – I want them to be out and about most of the time. There aren’t many toys in there – mainly books for our family reading time before bed. Definitely no TV or computers – though now with tablets and ipads they can be easily transported anywhere. Something to watch for!!

  10. I shared a room with my little sister (4 years younger) until I went to high school and we loved it. Yes, there were times that we’d keep each other up, but for the most part it was great. We still share our old room during holidays – but now it’s by choice. We want to stay up all night chatting.

    Whether you make it into another bedroom or a craft room, I’m sure it will look great. Can’t wait to see what you do!

    1. Oh that is so great Amanda that you have so much closeness with your sister. Once my oldest son is older (like middle or high school) he can move to a basement bedroom, but I think while they are little it is great to encourage their ‘bonding’… hope a shared room will do just that!

  11. My boys share a room. They are 4 and 3 years old and they have shared for about two years. They didn’t have a choice as we only had two bedrooms at the time. When we moved we could have split them up, but we chose not to.

    With them being so young, there were some very rough nights when one of them woke up the other one and then they both had trouble going back to bed. I am glad we stuck it out though because having an extra bedroom has been a big blessing. Ours is currently a guest room, but will probably be changing soon. It isn’t all bliss and harmony in my sons’ room but they cringe at the thought of being separated. They find it comforting to have their brother with them.

    1. Hi PJ! I can imagine it isn’t all bliss and harmony… but I figure that the fights will happen whether they share or don’t share. I would love them to develop that bond of wanting to be together all the time – even though they fight. I hope it works out for us!!

  12. My kids shared a room for about six months. My son was 9 and my daughter 5. They had fun with bunk beds and many nights giggling. But in the end they just needed their own spaces to protect their toys from each other. It was their idea, and summer when they started sharing, but when school came around they each wanted their own space. Obviously with a boy/girl pairing it couldn’t last long but I think they had fun while it did.

    1. I guess we will soon see if that is an issue Andrea!! We have a playroom in the basement so that is where most of the toys are – except for my son’s lego. That could be an issue!!

  13. Krista, we have the same taste so much! I have that exact bedding in my son’s bedroom as well. My boys share a room and we are just about ready to put our youngest son in a bed as well so this post was perfect! You have given me tonnes of inspiration! Thank-you!

    1. Hi Ann Marie – I wish I had bought two sets of the bedding now because I called down to Home Sense and they are out of that pattern. Oh well, I see that in many of my inspiration pics the boys beds are slightly different from one another (a different colour or the same colours but a different pattern) so that might add to the look. Our little guy LOVES his new big boy bed (aka mattress on the ground until we build a bed – beds are sooo expensive!!).

  14. How exciting for your boys! I never shared a room but my sisters did. They always look back at it fondly. My kids don’t share. Mostly because of birth order. My oldest and youngest are boys and there is too much age spread between them. And I SURE my daughter wouldn’t want to share with either of her brothers!! This craft room sounds great. It could also be the place where homework gets done too. Looking forward to seeing what route you choose….

    1. I was thinking I would put my son’s homework desk in there as well- he is starting grade one and I know his teacher gives homework EVERY day! So that would be a perfect space for it!!

  15. Craft room! Craft room! Craft room! (You can see the way my brain thinks!). I love the grey bedroom – I would love that just for me and my husband!!! Also the room with 3 beds is cute! I wonder how quickly those kids go to sleep at night?!

    1. Haha…. So far so good Petra! I hope it works out -it would be fabulous not to have my craft stuff spread out all over our only dining table and the boys craft gear spread out (literally) all over the kitchen floor!!

  16. My two younger sisters shared a room when we were growing up and I got my own room being the oldest. Even though I loved having my own room, I couldn’t help but be envious at times that they got to share a room and share in on those late night conversations they used to have. I like the idea of shared rooms! Looking forward to seeing whatever you come up with. Sharon

    1. Hi Sharon! I know what you mean… I think that sharing a room may induce some fighting but also encourage lots of sharing and fun as well!!

    1. Oh, Anne – the inspiration pics are amazing. How do those pottery barn people do it?? Oh yeah… endless use of gorgeous expensive pottery barn products. Hmmmm…. once I took my husband to pottery barn – he took one look at some of the prices and told me “we aren’t pottery barn people, we are IKEA people”… so my mission is to create that high end look for less! Gets the creativity going, anyhow!

  17. We just reworked the bedroom in our house. We ended up making the master bedroom into a office/playroom space. I know the two don’t mess well, but we’re making it work and enjoying our new-found space. Now the “master” bedroom is really a little nursery room with no way out except to go through the office/bedroom. We’re just trying to make our house work for us and get the maximum use out of all our rooms.

    If I had two boys or girls, I’d definitely put them in the same room.
    ~FringeGirl

    1. I hear ya, Tricia – it sometimes takes some serious creativity to make our spaces work for us! I think that two little boys together is cute and the little brother is sure excited to share with his big brother (not sure if it works the other way around too:)

  18. My 7 and 10 year old boys share a room, and they are relatively harmonious together :). Whether that’s because of sharing a room or in spite of it, I couldn’t tell you! Family craft space is very tempting indeed, though, isn’t it?

    1. I had hoped, Gretchen, that them sharing would encourage a little extra brotherly interaction so I am glad to hear it has worked so well for your family!!

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