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Jess
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Ok I need help with how to give my kids (girls especially) more room in their room without knocking out a wall or something. We live in a 3 bedroom house and have 5 kids so far, 4 girls and 1 boy. The baby sleeps with us so she's covered, our ds has his own room, and our dd4, dd9, and dd11 share a room. The room is small and right now we have a bunkbed (full on bottom and twin on top) 3 dressers and a desk in there. They have no room to play hardly and the room is constantly a mess when they get just one thing out. My son's room has twin bunkbeds, a dresser, and a bookshelf. He has more room to play. I feel bad for my girls because they are so crammed in that room. We don't have a basement or any extra rooms to put anything in. We have recently added the closet organizers to help with making more usable space in the closets, but I just can't figure out what to do in the girls' room. They want to pull out the dollhouse they have in there but there is no room to sit around it. We have underbed drawers for things like Calico critters and doll clothes. We recently went through their clothes and took some out of the dressers, but I can't see any way to take a dresser out of there. The desk gets used by the bigger girls and they keep a lot of their art stuff in there, plus it hold their lamp and cd player. Does anyone have any ideas on how to maximize space (besides going in there with a big black trash bag which I am about to do anyway to declutter even more) My dh really struggles with this because he thinks we need a bigger house, but there is no way we can move or afford a bigger house right now so I am trying to make the house "seem" bigger so we are not so crammed in here. I know a lot of other people have this issue too so I would love to hear ideas that have worked for you, especially if you have a lot of kids in a small room and no where else to put them or their stuff.
Thanks!
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Jess
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wife to dh('96)
mama to dd(13), dd(11), ds(9), dd(6), and dd (2), and baby girl born Sept 14!
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lapazfarm
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Can you remove the desk and put the art stuff in a kitchen cabinet or dining room hutch? Then they can do their art at the table.
Perhaps store some toys under the couch or coffee table in the living room, or under your bed?
Can the doll house be set up in the living area?
We have 3 boys in one room and I have one dresser for the older boy with shelves on top of it for his games and stuff, and one dresser for the middle boy, with shelves on top of it(up to the ceiling)with baskets for the littlest boy's clothes and seasonal items. This really helps keep the floor clear.
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JodieLyn
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we have more toys out in winter for indoor play but a great deal is put away during summer.. prime outside play time.. they can have a play table and dishes outside and such.. but those don't take room in their room.
Also, you can try storing some things.. so like everything else gets put away for a while so that the doll house can occupy the central part of the room for a time. Then if they want something else they put away the doll house for a while..
When all else fails I remind myself that they have each other to play with and Laura Ingalls managed to grow up with one doll and few other toys 
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amyable
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| Posted: June 04 2008 at 3:36pm | IP Logged
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I just measured my girls rooms and they are smaller than I thought . Maybe not as small as you are talking, though.
We have 4 girls and a boy too. Right now the boy is with us, and we have three girls in an awkward 9x10ish room and 1 girl in an 8x10 room (that room seems much smaller due to layout of doors, etc)).
In the 3 girls room, we have lined the walls with unbunked twin beds (which we will bunk up when we can trust our 3yo not to take a flying leap  ), and a toddler bed. One dresser that you can't open all the way because it hits a bed! Three underbed boxes, one for each girl. We could fit a 4th, maybe. (We could fit it definitely, but it would be hard to access.) A small closet. That's it.
We don't store toys in their room, except what fits in their underbed boxes and closet. Most of the clothes for this room are in our "family closet" - two garment racks down in front of the washer/dryer. Their closet actually holds shoes and linens, mostly, because we only have one other closet in the house besides the small ones in each bedroom. That family closet, and paring down dramatically in the clothes/toys department, have saved us from having to move.
We do still struggle mightily with "messy room" syndrome though! Just a few things out makes our house look bad...and it's usually more than "a few things out."  We're trying...
I don't know all your specifics, but if it were me I would really try harder to get a dresser out - or think tall/thin dresser over long wide to maximize empty floor space, look for ways to store things elsewhere in the house (be creative!), pare down what everyone owns as much as you can stand, and then PM me for a big hug because I know how it feels!!
I'm happy to try to help with more specifics...
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Philothea
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I have seen all-in-one bunk bed/dresser units that sleep three or four people and look nice. They are a bit pricey but could be a good investment in your situation -- certainly cheaper than an addition or a new home.
ETA here is an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about:
Click Here
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CAgirl4God
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| Posted: June 04 2008 at 7:04pm | IP Logged
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we have a small room that all three girls are in.
we have a bunk bed and a Loft bed. they are on opposite walls. we have a large dresser (low with two sets of drawers side by side) that fit between the two sets. this have their lamp, they 'special things' and a cd player. under the loft bed is a single dresser (same wall as the other dresser) that leave enough space on the floor to play if they want. to get games out. etc...
they only have a few hanging items, I put in my closet. their closet is full of storage lol.
I LOVE our loft bed. it is hand made by my brother, and VERY sturdy. it is a bit higher that the ones you can buy at the store. and probably cost under $100 to make.
if needed, s toddler bed would fit under the loft bed with room to spare....
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Lara Sauer
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Might I recommend the Laura Ingalls Wilder approach?
One dress for the week, one dress for Sunday, one small corn cob husk doll for each girl and a tin cup to share!
Or you could go the Blessed Theresa of Calcutta approach: a sari to wash and a sari to wear!
Seriously, I think you probably need to declutter and donate up to 1/2 the clothing and toys that you have. In America it is not that we suffer from a lack of room...rather we suffer from a surplus of STUFF.
Invite a good friend over for a Saturday of rolling up your sleeves and send your husband off on an adventure with your children and while they are away, you need to do one of those "WHILE YOU WERE AWAY" make-overs on their room. Buy some pretty wall clings and maybe some paint. They will care less about the things that are gone once they see how "pretty" their new room is without everything crammed in!
Good luck and have fun throwing things away that you don't love!
Peace!
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Jess
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| Posted: June 05 2008 at 11:46am | IP Logged
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Thanks for all the ideas.
So yesterday here's what we did:
I removed the desk and put it in the garage. It made a big difference in floor space! Then we went through the dressup and got rid of a whole totefull and cleaned out and got rid of a bunch of other stuff (like Polly's, can't stand those things!). Then I reorganized their closet and got some of the stuff from under the bed and put it in the closet. We have one tall dresser that has 5 drawers for our oldest, though she only uses 3 of the drawers, the other two are for storage. The other two dressers are short 3 drawer dressers with hutches on top that all the girls have their special stuff on. Someday we will probably need to put our youngest dd in there. We would love to have more children, so hopefully God will send us some more boys to fill up our boys room
I recently went through their clothes and I would clean out again, but my girls are messy and are constantly dropping stuff on their clothes and then we end up with stained clothes that I only let them wear at home (even though I try to get the stains out), so if they have too few clothes then they don't have nicer clothes for going out/Church.
Lara, you know I have thought of that, I so wish I could do that too with their clothes I have gone through their stuff pretty frequently and we declutter a lot. As far as toys, we clean those out a lot too. We don't buy toys very often either. What they get is from either Christmas or Bdays and usually not from us. How do you deal with the not wanting to give away toys because you hope to have more children that will use them. Do you box things up for later use?
Philothea, that bed is really neat. I have never seen one like that, I'll show that to my dh to keep in mind for the future. We have thought about someday downsizing the bunk bed with the full size on bottom to two twin bunkbed sets with trundles.
We have also thought about converting our garage to a room to make more living space in the house. We would probably make it our girls' room. My mom used to live with us and she shared a room with our ds (slept on the bottom bunk) She moved to live near my brother for awhile to help out my SIL with their new baby but she is planning on moving back here eventually. I would like for her to be able to live with us again, but not have to share a room with my son. If we converted the garage we could move the girls out there and my mom could have their room. We really like our house and there would be no way we could beat the payment if we tried to buy a new one (even though we would love to have some land around the house). So if we are blessed with more kids we have to put them somewhere and I don't think we could really afford to add on to this house plus because our lot is small we would have to go up instead of out (we have a 1 story). Has anyone converted their garage for more living space? How much does that cost?
I am sorry if this is all jumbly!
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God bless,
Jess
+JMJ+
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mama to dd(13), dd(11), ds(9), dd(6), and dd (2), and baby girl born Sept 14!
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: June 05 2008 at 12:38pm | IP Logged
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We have converted a garage before and it was not very expensive at all. It's a great option. We actually built a false wall approx 4 ft from the garage door so that the garage door still opened and we had some space to store outdoor stuff.
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Theresa
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Jess
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Theresa,
How did you keep it cool or warm enough with the false wall? We live in a very hot area and we tried one year to make half of the garage a playroom by putting up shelves with wood attached to the back as a sort of wall, but it was unbearable in there in the summer even with a ceiling fan and an ac vent installed. I even had insullation blown in the attic above it (even though recently my dh looked up in there and saw that they hardly blew it over the garage  - he was deployed and I was pregnant when the people came to do it so apparently they didn't do a good job). We also don't have windows in the garage so its dark in there even with a ceiling fan light. We would want windows and better insullation (am I spelling that right?-it looks wrong). I have heard that converting the garage is bad for resale value, but we have no idea when we would sell our house. We are military so there is always the possiblity that we will have to move, but my dh has been "homesteaded" which means we will be here for quite a while, but we don't know exactly how long.
We have gone back and forth about converting it and can't decide.
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God bless,
Jess
+JMJ+
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mama to dd(13), dd(11), ds(9), dd(6), and dd (2), and baby girl born Sept 14!
star cottage
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amyable
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| Posted: June 05 2008 at 1:56pm | IP Logged
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Jess wrote:
| The other two dressers are short 3 drawer dressers with hutches on top that all the girls have their special stuff on. Someday we will probably need to put our youngest dd in there. |
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She might be more comfortable on a bed.
OK, OK, just kidding. 
Jess wrote:
As far as toys, we clean those out a lot too. We don't buy toys very often either. What they get is from either Christmas or Bdays and usually not from us. How do you deal with the not wanting to give away toys because you hope to have more children that will use them. Do you box things up for later use?
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We've found the more kids we have the fewer toys we need. I've never regretted getting rid of a toy - they always wind up getting more for birthdays/Christmas anyway.
I think the garage idea sounds good - I wish we had one! 
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lapazfarm
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Jess wrote:
Theresa,
How did you keep it cool or warm enough with the false wall? We live in a very hot area and we tried one year to make half of the garage a playroom by putting up shelves with wood attached to the back as a sort of wall, but it was unbearable in there in the summer even with a ceiling fan and an ac vent installed. I even had insullation blown in the attic above it (even though recently my dh looked up in there and saw that they hardly blew it over the garage - he was deployed and I was pregnant when the people came to do it so apparently they didn't do a good job). We also don't have windows in the garage so its dark in there even with a ceiling fan light. We would want windows and better insullation (am I spelling that right?-it looks wrong). I have heard that converting the garage is bad for resale value, but we have no idea when we would sell our house. We are military so there is always the possiblity that we will have to move, but my dh has been "homesteaded" which means we will be here for quite a while, but we don't know exactly how long.
We have gone back and forth about converting it and can't decide. |
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I guess I am mistaken in calling it a false wall. It was non-load-bearing, but a real wall. I think of it as a "false wall" because of the fact of the additional garage space left behind it. I guess it would be more accurate to call it a false garage!LOL!
This was quite a few years ago (maybe ten???) and my dh did the work, so I don't remember a lot of details. I think it was really well insulated, so heat/cold was not a problem. This was in FL on the intracoastal, so hot, but breezy. And we had a window unit and ceiling fan installed in there to help with heat/humidity.
Hmmm.. other than that I think it was just carpeted and dry walled. Nothing fancy.
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Theresa
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Barbara C.
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You don't have to absolutely segregate the girls and boys, either. There was one family I saw on tv that had like fifteen boys and one girl. The girl shared a room with three of her brothers about her age or younger. They probably had her go change in the bathroom while the boys changed in the room.
Or you could move one of the dressers or toys into the boy's room.
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Jess
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We have thought about moving one of the girls in with our son who is 7, maybe the 4 yr old, but the 9yr old would be better fit personality-wise. We actually a couple of years ago put the 4 oldest in one room and made the other the playroom, but as my oldest dd gets older I know that wouldn't work anymore. I always thought it would be great to have a girls room and a boys room, God keeps sending us girls so the girls room gets fuller and fuller
My dh would love to do the work to cut costs on a garage conversion. The only thing he is leary about is very much electrical and how to take the garage door down if we converted the whole thing, oh and the changing the outside, like with brick or siding.
Amy, that was pretty funny . You know I have never regretted getting rid of toys either, so I guess I should just throw them out. How many things do you allow them to keep, like what for boys and what for girls, or rather what number of groups of toys (you know like dolls, calico critters, legos, etc)? I always think I have been brutal in decluttering only to realize a week later that they still have too much.
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God bless,
Jess
+JMJ+
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Red Cardigan
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A couple of suggestions (and while I've only got three children myself, I'm the second oldest of nine).
One is, get rid of the dressers altogether! For things that do better in "drawers" use hanging shelf bags like this one; put everything else on hangers (I remember using lots of this kind of thing for skirts or shorts, etc.). If the closet isn't big enough, commandeer half of your son's closet as well--and move anything not "seasonal" to an attic, basement or garage. (Of course, get rid of anything that doesn't fit or isn't worth passing down to the next youngest child.)
Replace the dresser hutches either with a single tall bookshelf (the "collectibles" can go on the higher shelves, and games and books on the lower) or with wall-mounted shelving on brackets. If the desk is too bulky, look for an inexpensive small table that can be used for drawing, puzzles, etc. instead (and if you put a really long cloth over the table you can dress it up *and* have extra storage!).
When I was a growing up there were five girls and four boys, and one of the main ways my parents made enough room for all of us was to give the five girls the master bedroom in whatever house we lived in (we moved a lot). Perhaps that might be an option for you once your littlest girl is old enough to move in with her sisters?
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Jess
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| Posted: June 06 2008 at 8:37am | IP Logged
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We have thought about giving the girls our bedroom too, but my dh has to get up really early for PT and needs the bathroom to get dressed in so he doesn't wake everyone up. Plus I don't think our bed would fit in their room, and we need a big bed because we usually have little people in it too at sometime during the night.
We have thought about all the different possibilities. I think taking the desk out will work for now, and I'll keep decluttering. Maybe someday we can convert the garage.
Thanks for all the ideas!
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God bless,
Jess
+JMJ+
wife to dh('96)
mama to dd(13), dd(11), ds(9), dd(6), and dd (2), and baby girl born Sept 14!
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amyable
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Jess wrote:
How many things do you allow them to keep, like what for boys and what for girls, or rather what number of groups of toys (you know like dolls, calico critters, legos, etc)? I always think I have been brutal in decluttering only to realize a week later that they still have too much.
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I feel the same way! I am still in awe (in a bad way) that we have so much STUFF and yet I am giving boxes and bags and more boxes and bags away ALL. THE. TIME.
At least with our family, our boy is still only a baby (8 mo.) so he has very few toys. What he has can fit in one wicker laundry basket in the living room (OK, so it's piled high, but still it fits ) He makes up for it in clothes and cloth diapers though!
The girls have one large storage box full of Littlest Pet Shop/Polly Pocket/Kelly toys. These are nasty because they migrate all over the house and the pieces are little. But they are the absolute favorites of the younger set, so we are compromising (LOL, the compromise was me getting rid of all the Barbie stuff and letting them keep that bin of little chokables ) I count that all as "one thing". Hmmm...American Girl knockoffs/clothes, a large felt board/Bible felts set, matchbox cars (kept mostly for future for son but the girls use them too), a large bin of dress-ups/playsilks, play doh, board games/puzzles, two kinds of blocks (cardboard and wood), stuffed animals ,outdoor toys/sports stuff... I think those are the major things? There's probably more, but I know so much of our "clutter" is educational - books, music, craft supplies that multiply in the night, computers and disks, leap pads, manipulatives, file folder games, etc.
Ugh, writing it out makes it sound like a lot. It's nothing compared to what I've seen in other homes, but we just don't have the space to live happily with it all, at least not how it's arranged right now. I'm working on it!
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Jess
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OK here is what the girls have in their room (they have a nifty closet organizer in their closet with shelves):
*plan dollhouse
*calico critters (that live in above dollhouse)-in plastic drawer in closet
*littlest petshop-in another plastic drawer in closet
*squishy dolls (my kids' words for them--these are actually beanie baby dolls w/clothes my mom bought them years ago, but littles love them)-in 3rd plastic drawer in closet
*colonial dolls w/clothes girls got in Williamsburg
*baby dolls/clothes/carriers etc (under bed)
*dressup --in tote in closet
*tea sets - on shelf in closet
*mr. potato head- on shelf in closet
*2 other little doll sets- on shelf in closet
*basket of suffed animals --under bed (and plenty more on the beds )
In ds's room:
*legos (1 box of big, 1 box of small)- under bed
*kinex--on shelf in closet
*tinker toys--on shelf in closet
*box of rescue heroes - on shelf in closet
*tote of dressup
*box of hot wheels-- under bed
*army guys- on shelf in closet
*playmobil --in tote
*basket of toy weapons
*basket of balls
*box of dinosaurs --on shelf in closet
Baby- her toys are in the living room.
*1 basket of stuffed animals (not sure they are all hers)
*2 dollhouses - 1 plastic, 1 cloth
*play vacuum
*ball tower
*baby doll crib/playpen thingie
We also have a play kitchen and a few dishes/food (though I really got rid of the junky stuff a while back- so there isn't much in it) and a play shopping cart.
We have a lot of books also, 3 shelves in the living room and 1 in ds's room, but we have big readers in our family.
I think that's all they have. It does really seem like a lot and there are a few things that I have an idea will go in my next cleanout. Do we have too much???? I struggle with that too, having too much when so many don't have much at all. We are taking a bunch of stuff to Ladies of Charity tomorrow. I'm sure we could be taking more.
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Jess
+JMJ+
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amyable
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Jess wrote:
I think that's all they have. It does really seem like a lot and there are a few things that I have an idea will go in my next cleanout. Do we have too much???? I struggle with that too, having too much when so many don't have much at all. We are taking a bunch of stuff to Ladies of Charity tomorrow. I'm sure we could be taking more.
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I don't know if you have "too much" but I know how you feel! (the struggling with having a good many things when others have so little).
Your list made me remember a whole 'nother shelf of toys (mostly baby/toddler stuff) 
You are inspiring me to get rid of more. Where's that backhoe when you need it?
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lapazfarm
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It doesn't seem like too much to me. I couldn't list all of my kids stuff on one page. And I know we have a lot less than many folks because I have seen what excess is like and we definitely are not there yet.
That being said, paring down is always refreshing. And right now, as I pack for our move, I am wishing we had a whole lot less.
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Theresa
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