Room Swap!

I got the 'furniture reorganizing' bug this week. I have a love/hate relationship with that bug, don't you? ; )

Originally I had planned on keeping Ella and Eli down in the main floor bedroom with their toys, and giving the baby Eli's old upstairs bedroom when he/she arrives in November. The problem is....we have TOO MANY TOYS!

Part of the problem can be solved by simply purging and getting rid of stuff that the kids don't even play with. But even after that is done, the thought of all of our toys being shoved in to a small bedroom along with 2 beds made me want to vomit. I was aching for a "toy room". I am sick and tired of the bedroom being a disaster and either trying to get all the toys cleaned up before bed (anyone with a 2 year old who has a mission of mass destruction knows how ridiculous this attempt is) or climbing through the mounds of toys on the floor to get in to bed. Both not great options.

While chatting with my mom a few weeks ago, she said "A toy room should be a place where you can just shut the door, and deal with it when you have the time." So true. If I got all the toys cleaned up every day, I would never have a clean bathroom or kitchen. My kids can empty every toy bin in 95 seconds flat, no matter how many "one thing at a time" discussions we have. 95 seconds of destruction = a solid 35 minutes of cleaning. And it happens every 40 minutes.

My current solution turned out to be: move the kids beds upstairs to Eli's old room. Move all the toys downstairs to Ella's room. Upstairs room + beds = bedroom for sleeping only! No toys allowed! Downstairs room + toys = playroom for yippee-fun-play-time!

Looks like new baby's crib will wind up in our bedroom. Which I can deal with.

(Nobody yell at me!) I lugged the beds upstairs myself and made the change while Chris was at work one day this week. I'm happy with the outcome! Hopefully we can redecorate the bedroom upstairs. Ella is talking about Rapunzel walls. We'll see how Eli feels about that : )

Bedroom:

(Excuse my pictures. It's impossible to take photos in this bedroom without sunspots!)

Playroom:

I had hopes that the move might encourage Eli to sleep later in the morning - the upstairs room is darker (like a cave with the dark carpet and walls, and blackout curtains!) and quieter (there's a bus stop right outside of the downstairs room window) but to no avail : ( He's still up with the birds around 6:00 am! On the plus side, ever since the move, he's randomly decided he likes his own bed again, and no longer sleeps with Ella. Go figure.