We have a four bedroom house so each of the three kids got their own bedroom until recently when my mother in law moved in with us. We gave her the Babes' bedroom since that room already had our queen guest bed in there, and had the least amount of stuff in it.
We decided to move the Babes, who is now 2, into the Spencinator's room (he's 9). There really wasn't any room for an extra bed and dresser in Sweetie Pie's room, plus the Babes likes to get into all her stuff. And since Sweetie Pie is our resident artist and has her own desk with art supplies, that could get messy with a toddler playing in there.
The Spencinator's room has mostly Lego's, which the Babes doesn't play with too much. Plus he just has less stuff in his room than Sweetie Pie, so we would could fit an extra bed and dresser in there without too much furniture moving.
After inheriting a full size bed, we bunked up the beds from Sweetie Pie's room and the Spencinator's room. Before we had kids, we bought bunk beds which could also separate into two twin beds. We frequently had overnight guests back then and knew we'd one day have kids so they'd be put to good use. So now, the Babes sleeps on a twin bed instead of a toddler bed, and Sweetie Pie has a full size bed. Surprisingly the full size bed doesn't take up that much more room than her twin bed. And because there is no head or foot board, the corner of her room where the bed ends, actually looks bigger. I'll have to write about her room another time.
The Spencinator and the Babes' sleep habits work well together too, which was another factor in putting them together. The Spencinator falls asleep quickly and sleeps through just about anything. Sweetie Pie on the other hand, is a light sleeper and likes to read/draw/play well past her bedtime before she's tired enough to fall asleep. The Babes pretty much does whatever the other person is doing, so if someone is awake she wants to be awake, but if someone is sleeping then she'll fall asleep quickly too. It's really worked out great, and the Spencinator doesn't mind having his little sister sleep in his room.
As far as decorating, the Babes is too young to care, but she does have a preference for blue. So the room doesn't look girly and the Spencinator doesn't really care either, he's just happy to not have a pink room.
So here's their shared room now (the before pictures are on the left and the after is on the right).
To see how the Spencinator's room has evolved in the past year, check out THIS post and THIS post.
How do you deal with shared bedrooms?
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Christa
