(…and an eighth little prince who somehow managed to get his own room)
We play musical rooms a lot in our four-bedroom home. With every new baby, we re-evaluate the use of each bedroom, and often in between births as well! Some arrangements are well-received and last a while, and some ideas are ditched within a few months. Such was the case since Handsome was born.
For several years, we had all three girls in the largest bedroom, two boys in the middle sized room, and two boys in the tiny bedroom. After Handsome was born, he slept in a bassinet in our bedroom.
About six months ago, we switched things up. (Cue music. Imagine bedroom furniture rotating around in circles).
The four older boys moved into the big bedroom, Writer moved into the middle bedroom under the notion that she would share her room with the baby when he got big enough for the crib, and the two younger girls moved into the tiny bedroom.
A few months later, the boys still liked their sleeping arrangements and needed only to re-arrange some furniture, but the girls were less than thrilled. They missed being all together.
It was time to play musical rooms again.
As a side note, frequent rounds of musical rooms is a GREAT way to keep up with cleaning underneath kids’ beds. You’d be amazed at what you find.
But back to our bedroom arrangements.
I’m so very excited about our newest arrangement. I am hopeful that this one will last a while. Want to see some pictures?
Let’s start with the boys. I recently bought some 
This is what you see when you enter the boys’ room. The dresser is shared by all four boys. They use it only for pajamas, socks, belts, and underwear, so one dresser is plenty.
I’m especially pleased with this arrangement that we did for our young sports enthusiasts! Those are real football and hockey photos, by the way. Long story short, Iron Man has a friend who knows a professional sports photographer, and the photos were a Christmas gift to Handyman last year. Great gift, isn’t it? (Thanks again, Mr. John! A year later, they still love the pictures!)
Here’s the next corner of the boys’ room.
Iron Man came up with the idea of putting the bunkbeds in an “L” shape. I couldn’t for the life of me envision it until it was complete, but now I LOVE it!
Here are the boys’ closets. Their closet space is fantastic!
Here’s a peek inside the first closet. We use interlocking storage cubes
The other closet. There is a small amount of space on each side of the cube set for hanging clothes, but our boys don’t have a lot that requires hanging. This space is plenty for their needs. On the floor, each boy has a bin to toss his shoes in.
Out the door and to the left, we come to the girls’ room. We have pink letter stickers gracing their room. This bedroom is not as large as the boys’, but they love it.
Here’s the view when you first enter.
A week ago, that cute little white dressing table was a desk that looked like this.
Just my opinion, but I love it much more painted white!
Here are the girls’ beds. The top bunk is Writer’s twin bed, and the bottom bunk is a full-sized bed shared by Cowgirl and Strawberry.
Along the next wall is the girls’ closet. I actually forgot to take a picture of the whole closet with the doors shut, but here it is with open doors.
Same storage cubes as the boys’, different color
And one last picture of the girls’ room.
The last bedroom, the tiny one, is presently uninhabited. It contains a crib and a dresser awaiting the arrival of Handsome, who is still small enough to sleep in a cradle in our room. No pictures of his room today as it’s a little messy from our recent round of musical rooms and my painting project, but I’ll be glad to show you his door.
I can’t say who is the most excited: the boys with their new L-shaped arrangement and super-cool football picture arrangement… or the girls, thrilled to be all together again, who have scored a gorgeous dressing table. Either way, everyone is very happy with the place they landed in the latest game of Musical Rooms!
Fun!
We have all 4 kids in one room and all the toys in the other room (our house is 3 bedroom). My husband came up with the funny idea to turn the crib upside down and take off the front panel. There are 3 sides to the crib (one against the back, one against a wall and one open to the side. We put a mattress on the floor and a mattress on the metal bottom… which is now the top :) Our 5 year old sleeps on top and our 3 year old sleeps on the floor mattress. It is the cutest little tiny bunk bed :)
They all love sleeping in there together and my husband does devotions with them in the evening in the room while they are in their beds. They will often listen to adventures in Odyssey too.
The kids just love being together. My two oldest even have a mail delivery pulley system in the works between their two bunk beds :)
I like your idea of the the L shape. Maybe we’ll have to try that sometime too :)
Becky, What a neat idea to do with your crib! I’ll bet it’s adorable! :-)
In our old house (4 bedroom with one a school/play room) we had an L shape bunk going on for awhile. The boys liked it! Now we have a 5 bedroom house with a basement family room and 7 children.. We have a baby room(1yo), too little to be in the basement room (5 and 3yo), a boys room (6 and 9 year old) and a girl room (10yo). Before long the boy room will have 3 instead of just two when number 7 is here and ready to be in a baby room. :)
Vicki, sounds like a great arrangement! :-)
Thanks for sharing all those pictures. Beautiful bedrooms! and I just love how much closet space is in your boys room.
Did you use spray paint for the desk or regular paint with a brush/sponge brush? We have an extra changing table for gracie that we would like to paint white and keep in the basement…but don’t know how best to go about it.
Hi Liz, I used small foam rollers ($2 for a set of 2 at Walmart) for most of the desk, and a foam brush for the crevices. I cleaned it well and primed it first, then two coats of paint. Here is a good tutorial that taught me how to do it and what paint to use: http://justagirlblog.com/painting-furniture/
Thanks, as always, for your practical posts, Michelle! This has been the very thing we have been trying to come up with a solution to for some time now. We currently have seven children with another one on the way and three bedrooms for the kids to share. Our biggest dilemma is that six of our seven are boys :), even though our girl always gets the baby with her. We have been looking for a way to save on space and want to get rid of dressers and I was looking to utilize the closet space somehow. So thanks for sharing your ideas! One dilemma for us is trying to still keep a place for guests to stay. Currently that is our daughter’s room because she has a full bed and we only have to move two of them out. Any suggestions on what you do when you have company?
Hi Melanie, when we have company, we offer one of our beds. Our children actually sleep in their sleeping bags a few times a month anyhow because they love camping out in each other’s rooms for weekends sleepovers, so it’s nothing for us to wash some sheets and offer a bed. My husband and I will typically offer our bedroom as a guestroom, then we’ll sleep in one of the children’s beds and the children will use a sleeping bag. Some guests insist on sleeping on the couch, too. :-)
Love it ! Can’t wait to see it in person !
Thanks, Gram! :-)
Thanks for the lovely ideas. I found your website after looking for ideas to fit both my girls into a 9′x9′ bedroom. We have an adopted child (a boy) on the way so have to quickly split the master bedroom into two small rooms. The girls will have the hall storage cupboard for their clothes as well. It is a large cupboard and will free up some floorspace in their bedroom. My only concern is what happens when they grow up. Will my kids all still fit into their compact bedrooms? I am sure they will….they have to really!
Thanks, Tess! Isn’t it a blessing to know your house is really being maximized with lots of little souls living and growing there? I’m glad you have worked out a solution for fitting everyone. My thought on fitting them as they grow is to not worry. ;-) I often say “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” God always provides solutions right on time when we need them. Not knowing what the future holds, we choose to trust the One who does! :-)
So true, Michelle. Just this morning (very early) when all my thoughts about growing up were swimming around my head, I thought, ‘God, take this from me! I know it will work out as this is your plan for us,…..and then I went instantly back to sleep. Problem solved!
Awesome, Tess! God is good! :-)