We finally gave Gerrit and Emma their own rooms. I think it was time to make the switch when Gerrit started asking Heavenly Father every night he said prayers to please help Emma to not keep him up, stay in her bed, not be loud...so on and so on.
We knew when we put them together that is wasn't going to last forever, but I thought it would last longer than a year. It was around February of 2007 that we combined them so I could have an office. We thought they still could use a playroom so we opted to keep that at the time. They really didn't go in there all that much because I had the gate up to keep Katy off the carpet when she was potty training.
Fast forward a year and we decided that their bedrooms can me multi-functional; bedroom/playrooms. Ingenious! I mean what did we do as kids...I know I never had a PLAY ROOM.
It was always; go to your room and play!
We started talking about all the different posibilities of who could go where. Gerrit picked out his room when we moved in and Emma could care less so Gerrit got to stay in his room. We went back and forth on where Emma and the office should go. It would have been easier to just put Emma in the playroom and be done but there was a little problem. Garth took out the closet shelving to build a shelf and that is where we have our food storage. We have a lot of food storage and we didn't want Emma to get into it. But it was going to be a BIG pain to move my BIG desk from one room to the other.
Garth finally talked me into taking the time to move the desk and put emma back in her room. It made more sence to have my office where the food storage was anyway. We started this huge task at about 5pm on New Years Day. We would have started earlier but we had company down because we went and saw Neil Diamond in concert the night before...parting with ND late into the night...AWESOME!!!
By around 10:30pm, the beds were just being put together, the kids were so wound up about sleeping in their own rooms and Garth and I were exhausted from 5 hours of non-stop manual labor. Mind you that I sit in a car all day and he is now behind a desk so we aren't used to this. We get to a point where we can call it a night...FINALLY! What a day!
So in the end we have Gerrit where he started, his bed against a different wall, his dresser (a big 8 drawer solid oak monster) moved across the room, his hutch (used to be mine growing up) is now Emma's awaiting a new coat of paint so it had to be moved out and the big red couch in the corner.
Emma got a room with a closet full of my craft/scrapbooking stuff, a bed, a chair that is actually part of our couch that doean't fit in the family room (another long story) and her play kitchen in the corner.
We broke down my BIG mamoth of a desk and moved it into the far room that used to be the playroom and had that basially put back together. The task for me the following week was to clean out Emma's closet, which really meant clean out the small computer desk in the alcove so I could have that be my craft area, find Emma a dresser, paint the hutch, organize the toys between the rooms and make sure all my work stuff was where I needed it to be.
Here we are two weeks later and I can say that I am pretty much caught up, except for painting the hutch. I have half of the first coat of paint on it and it has been that way for a week now.
The only room that hasn't had major rearranging done is the master-bedroom. We are getting a Cedar Chest next week so I have to find somewhere to put that...probably in my room.
I didn't take pictures of the before...I know bad Angie!!!
But here are some pictures of the hutch -- two-toned
We knew when we put them together that is wasn't going to last forever, but I thought it would last longer than a year. It was around February of 2007 that we combined them so I could have an office. We thought they still could use a playroom so we opted to keep that at the time. They really didn't go in there all that much because I had the gate up to keep Katy off the carpet when she was potty training.
Fast forward a year and we decided that their bedrooms can me multi-functional; bedroom/playrooms. Ingenious! I mean what did we do as kids...I know I never had a PLAY ROOM.
It was always; go to your room and play!
We started talking about all the different posibilities of who could go where. Gerrit picked out his room when we moved in and Emma could care less so Gerrit got to stay in his room. We went back and forth on where Emma and the office should go. It would have been easier to just put Emma in the playroom and be done but there was a little problem. Garth took out the closet shelving to build a shelf and that is where we have our food storage. We have a lot of food storage and we didn't want Emma to get into it. But it was going to be a BIG pain to move my BIG desk from one room to the other.
Garth finally talked me into taking the time to move the desk and put emma back in her room. It made more sence to have my office where the food storage was anyway. We started this huge task at about 5pm on New Years Day. We would have started earlier but we had company down because we went and saw Neil Diamond in concert the night before...parting with ND late into the night...AWESOME!!!
By around 10:30pm, the beds were just being put together, the kids were so wound up about sleeping in their own rooms and Garth and I were exhausted from 5 hours of non-stop manual labor. Mind you that I sit in a car all day and he is now behind a desk so we aren't used to this. We get to a point where we can call it a night...FINALLY! What a day!
So in the end we have Gerrit where he started, his bed against a different wall, his dresser (a big 8 drawer solid oak monster) moved across the room, his hutch (used to be mine growing up) is now Emma's awaiting a new coat of paint so it had to be moved out and the big red couch in the corner.
Emma got a room with a closet full of my craft/scrapbooking stuff, a bed, a chair that is actually part of our couch that doean't fit in the family room (another long story) and her play kitchen in the corner.
We broke down my BIG mamoth of a desk and moved it into the far room that used to be the playroom and had that basially put back together. The task for me the following week was to clean out Emma's closet, which really meant clean out the small computer desk in the alcove so I could have that be my craft area, find Emma a dresser, paint the hutch, organize the toys between the rooms and make sure all my work stuff was where I needed it to be.
Here we are two weeks later and I can say that I am pretty much caught up, except for painting the hutch. I have half of the first coat of paint on it and it has been that way for a week now.
The only room that hasn't had major rearranging done is the master-bedroom. We are getting a Cedar Chest next week so I have to find somewhere to put that...probably in my room.
I didn't take pictures of the before...I know bad Angie!!!
But here are some pictures of the hutch -- two-toned
Old blue color from Gerrit's room
New Green color for Emma's room
I am going to paint her walls a two tone purpley-pink color
I am going to paint her walls a two tone purpley-pink color
It has hearts all over it -- it is totally a girls hutch
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