Phase 1 of the bedroom switcheroo completed!

Each time the Lord adds to our family we end up playing musical bedrooms.  Last time with the addition of Baby Lu we redid American Boy's nursery for her and moved Monk upstairs leaving American Boy in a room of his own.  Before American Boy had the nursery it was Measle's.  So in the last 7 years our nursery has gone from girl to boy and back to girl again.  This time Big D said we are absolutely NOT redoing that nursery!!  So here's the plan for our musical bedrooms.

Phase 1:  Move American Boy (4) upstairs with Monk (11).  They each have their own bedroom, but share a bathroom.  It's our plan to also move Currently Nameless Baby Boy up there with his brothers within a few years.  He will  probably share a room with American Boy.  The room we just moved AB into used to be part of our play/gameroom.  This is the first time we've used it as a bedroom and we need to add a small closet as it currently doesn't have one.  I guess that will be phase 1b.

Phase 2:  Take down bunk beds in American Boy's old room and set up the upper bunk as a twin bed and also put our boy crib in there.  This room will be for Big D's nephew, Joshie Boy who is coming to stay with us and also for Soon-to-be-born Baby Boy.  Since it has already been a boy room, we will not change paint, border, or curtains, only rearrange furniture.  Joshie Boy is coming next Tuesday so hopefully we'll complete phase 2 by then.

Phase 3:  Move Measle (almost 7) into Baby Lu's room.  Measle cannot remember not sharing a room with Twinkle Toes (9).  Twinkle Toes is very organized and responsible and Measle is, well.... in training.  We are hoping that by allowing Twinkle Toes to have her own room for a few years that she will be able to show us how neat she really is.  We're also hoping that by allowing Measle to play the role of big sister to Baby Lu that her organized, responsible side will have more opportunities to develop.  This will be a bit of a challenge since Baby Lu's nursery is quite small.  Big D will have to build a space-efficient loft bed for Measle to sleep in and Lu will graduate to a toddler bed.

Baby Lu's nursery that Measle will soon share.

Exhibit A:  Twinkle Toe's handiwork on display.

Exhibit B:  Measle Bug's drawers.

Phase 4:  Move a few pieces of furniture out of Twinkle Toe's room allowing her to rearrange and possibly graduate to a bigger bed.  She may have to stick with a twin or go to a full-size loft bed since her room is not terribly large either.

Let me just say that I really see the logic behind having one designated boys' room and one girls' room.  However, we didn't build this house, but bought it 7 years ago.  Only one of the kids' bedrooms is really large enough to fit more than 2 kids in it.  The upstairs was our addition, but even then we only had 3 kids and were not thinking in terms of bedroom space.  The result is we have lots of smaller size rooms.  If we were to build perhaps we would plan things differently, but for now we are just thrilled that God has blessed us with such a wonderful house with so much space.  Don't tell Big D, but I think there may even be room for a 7th.