We have been moving house this weekend.Well, not literally ... we are still in the same house. What has happened is that we have had a major shift in the bedroom situation.
We decided a couple of weeks ago that it was time our boys had separate rooms. Having a teenager sharing a room with a 6 year old is not practical anymore - the older boy wants more privacy and personal space now and the younger one is constantly messing up the space they share with his seemingly endless supply of train tracks and Lego.
In an ideal world we would have a four bedroom home. In this world, however, we don't. Moving to a bigger home is out of the range of our budget right now, so we had to come up with another solution. Luckily, the three bedroom house we currently live in does have a handy family/rumpus room tucked away at one end - big enough to be converted into another bedroom area.
We are renting, so we couldn't just put in another wall, but we were able to pick up some wardrobes at a local second-hand shop - great for partitioning off the area we want. Okay, so the new 'room' has a curtain for a door, but it works just fine. As an extra bedroom, it's perfect for the Caveman and myself. It is handy to the living areas, and leaves all the kids with a bedroom each at the other end of the house.
Of course, this has been a very popular move with the kids. They had no trouble deciding which room they would each have (with no arguments, surprisingly) and spent the weekend happily moving various items from one room to another.
I did worry about how our littlest Caveman would cope with being in a room on his own, after all this time with his big brother there for company , but he is doing well so far. The dog spent a night in his room to help with the transition and from there he's been fine - in fact, he's loving having the entire room to himself!
So, in one weekend we have gone from three bedrooms to four ... and found a whole lot of extra clutter. Where do you put everything from the family room when you don't have one anymore? There is a fair bit we can get rid of, but also a lot we would rather keep - and it all has to be sorted out.
No doubt it will give us plenty to do for the next couple of weeks :-)
