1 bedroom 1 playroom, or separate bedrooms?

So, we have a 4 bedroom house. At the moment, one bedroom is DH and mine, one is DS1's, one is DS2's and one is a study/office.

The house isn't particularly big - as in, they are perfectly adequate but not spacious rooms.

Master bedroom is staying as is.

Study is staying as is (it has desk, filing cabinets, exercise bike, cross trainer, etc).

The lounge/dining room doesn't work as a play room.

There is a back room which we kind of use as a play room ... it has bookshelves, a dining table made up as a change table, storage table, hallstand, etc. We also generally have airers out there drying MCNs, and then it has a billion toys and books which magically climb out of their homes and go all over the floor every time you leave the room.

So decisions: DS2 is about to go into a big boy bed, and we're deciding whether to put the boys into a shared room and turn the other into a play room.

One of the bedrooms is considerably (maybe 40-50%) bigger than the other one. At the moment, it has an identical chest of drawers, identical built in robe, comparable bookshelf, but has a cot and a nursing chair as opposed to a single bed. We could easily fit two beds in there, and have a little play room (and later a study nook for the boys when they're at school) or a bunk bed into the small bedroom, and have a reasonable sized play room.

Part of this is because I like the thought of having a dedicated play room, and part is because it really bothers me that the boys' rooms are such different sizes. Now that DS2 isn't feeding, it feels like favouritism (even though I know it's not, and that the boys are *way* to young to notice and be jealous about such a thing).

But then I think that it would be good to have the exercise bike in the back room instead of tucked away somewhere meaning we hardly use it, and I actually would want the boys' computer (when they're big enough to need and have one) in the back room, not tucked away somewhere behind closed doors, and so we want their toys and stuff elsewhere, and not in their rooms for sleeping.

And then I go back to thinking that we're just being really silly, and it's way too early as they as itty bitty boys still, and school is 2-3 years away!

What do others have and do?

What works well about it? What doesn't?

The boys are 20 months apart in age, and the study wouldn't work as a bedroom - it's a similar size to DS1's room, but has no built in robe. A cupboard would fit, but would considerably reduce the usable space, and we'd have a similar issue again.

We have 4 kids. All girls.

We only have a 3 bedroom house. So we have a sleep room (set of bunks and a single bed) with two chests of draws and a playroom with toys, dollhouse two draws and BIR.

Bubs is in with is and will be for at least another 6-10 months so will reassess layer but what we have ATM works for us.

We have recently moved the kids in to a shared room, and then we have a spare room/playroom. It is just playroom at the moment, but i am looking for a futon or fold out couch that we can use if visitors stay. My thought was it is easier to do it when they are little, and if it doesn't work, i can always change around again.

As HotI said, it isn't set in stone - give it a shot and if it doesn't work out then you can change around again. I have my girls in a shared room. They are 2 years apart in age. I think they like sharing. At least they have never said otherwise lol. They have the biggest room and it easily fits both beds, drawers and all their toys. There is another bedroom that one of them could have had but it is on the low end of a split level house, smaller and I like having a spare room for occasional guests.

I like them sharing. I always imagined having a sister to share a room with. Now they are stuck with my rose-tinted childhood musings lol

I have a 4 bedroom house with 4 kids. I get bored a lot so if I get sick of a combination I move it around. Lately the three older kids were sharing a room (double bed that they all shared), the 2 year old had her own room, and then we had the biggest room as a playroom. I got sick of that because the kids would just go in and absolutely trash the play room several times a day because there were so many toys in it.

I've also had the combinations of the two oldest sharing a room, the two oldest girls sharing a room - so I have moved rooms a bit LOL

After all the toys being trashed and stuff - I culled at least half of their toys, and split the kids up again. Now the two oldest have their own rooms, with their own toys in it.

The two youngest share the biggest room and have their own toys in there.

They also have the responsibility of cleaning their rooms before they go to bed - even the 2 year old. So I have noticed less trashing of rooms since that happened, not sure if its the fact that they have less toys, or that they realise that cleaning up after themselves isn't fun and maybe they just won't make as much mess that they have to clean up.

I think my point is - try it and if it doesn't work for you, there is always another possibility. :)

The girls are in one room, and the third bedroom is the toy room. Works well, they like being in together and I really can't stand having toys all over our lounge room.
DD2 still needs to be sat with when she falls asleep, and DD1 likes it when I stay with her, so makes my life much easier so they can now go to bed at the same time. Also only need to heat one room in winter. Lovely.

Go for it, if you don't like it, change it back! :)

This is true about changing it if we don't like it ...

Though we obviously don't want to buy a bunk and then find in six months time that's not working out.

That being said, I'd hardly be putting a 3yo in one! That's a few years away, I guess.

You could always but bunk beds that separate into 2 single beds.

We are planning on our next one sharing with DS as we only have a 3 bedroom house and use the 3Rd as a study currently. I shared with my sister for 16 years and loved it as a kid. Only at about 13 or 14 did I start to want my own room

My only comment? It's easier to separate when they are older if they are together when young.

They also are used to sharing rooms, so holidays etc aren't an issue.

I'd have them sharing a sleeping room (the smaller one in your house) and have the bigger bedroom for clothes and toys.

That way the sleeping room is for sleeping only.

I love the idea of sharing rooms and did try to get our boys to share earlier this year. We had a dedicated playroom/toy room and when Buster was ready to move out of our room I wanted to keep it that way! Unfortunately our 3 year old did not cope well with sharing his room and the whole thing became more trouble than it was worth, so we put them into their own rooms and split the toys up. It's not ideal but we gave it a go, all you can do it try :)

My 2 (5yr old girl and 3yr old boy) have shared since DS was 1.. And hope to keep it that way till DS starts school.

their room is quite small, so we do have bunks, and they much prefer to share than be on their own at moment. I would love a designated toy room, but that isn't happening since my Dad moved in with us.

How did you go with boy girl sharing a room? Ds is 18months but prob be 2 when dd moves in with him and dd 6months

I had a bedroom and a toy room for DS1&2 when they were younger and it was great! If you didn't get toys tidied before bed it was no problem either, the bedroom was always tidy and ready for sleep. You can just shut the door to the toy room so you don't have to see the chaos when there's no time to clean it. I had friends who's kids liked to trash the beds every time they came over and the toy room kept the beds clean and intact too :)

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I had a bedroom and a toy room for DS1&2 when they were younger and it was great! If you didn't get toys tidied before bed it was no problem either, the bedroom was always tidy and ready for sleep. You can just shut the door to the toy room so you don't have to see the chaos when there's no time to clean it. I had friends who's kids liked to trash the beds every time they came over and the toy room kept the beds clean and intact too :)

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:rofl: This is undoubtedly the biggest advantage of the dedicated toy room - closing the door when you can't be arsed!!

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How did you go with boy girl sharing a room? Ds is 18months but prob be 2 when dd moves in with him and dd 6months

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i have a 21 month gap, girl/boy pair. at this age, there is no issue with gender differences. i see in the future, them wanting/needing separate rooms but for now it works fine.

There is 21 months between my 2 (girl eldest), and so far there hasn't been any dramas.. I know, prob in the next few years, I am going to have to separate them, but at this age, i think it is fine.. The do most things together, are really good friends most of the time, so sleeping in the same room seemed the natural thing to do.

My boys are 19 months apart - and are now both at school. When we moved into a house with more bedrooms we offered them the choice - share a room still and have a separate playroom or separate bedrooms. They looked at us horrified - please don't make us sleep in different rooms they said. So shared room it was :) And they still wouldn't be apart!!

I have 4 bedrooms plus a study. The girls currently share a room, we have a dedicated play room and a guest room. Prior to that they had separate bedrooms and XDP had his own bedroom.

Getting the toys out of the living room into the playroom has been great. I've also put a sofa bed in there so that they can have sleepovers in there when they're older and/or I can have people over for dinner and the kids can watch a movie in the playroom so that the adults can actually have a conversation :)

It's also much easier getting them to sleep in the same room rather than in separate rooms. Obviously, we have nights where it all goes to pot but generally, they're pretty good.

We have just moved all our three kids together into one room, the sleeping room, and turned the other room into a toy room. We decided to do this for a few reasons. Our house is quite small and we had toys everywhere you looked so we wanted to try and contain the toys and also DS2 is a terrible sleeper and hating being left out so we are hoping that this will improve his sleeping too. It's been two weeks so far and it seems to be working really well.

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:rofl: This is undoubtedly the biggest advantage of the dedicated toy room - closing the door when you can't be arsed!!

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:lol: Absolutely! :lol:

My experience has always been that the boys want to be where I am. Play rooms just don't work because if I am in the lounge they just bring all their toys into the lounge.
I tried putting a sofa in the playroom so I could lounge and read while they played but I never really used it so our play rooms have always been the least utilised rooms in our homes.
Funnily enough they do play in their bedroom....

The advantage of 2 bedrooms if you don't have a spare room is that you can turf a child out so guests can have a room.

I have both my girls in one room (they are 4 and 2 yrs). We have a play area already, and a study, and a spare room, so they don't actually have to share because there's an extra room, but I wanted them to. I think it's good for them. At their ages I didn't think they needed a whole room to themselves. They get along very well and they like being in there together instead of alone. I would do it!

Children living with parents is love? What a sick, sick mind you have. Boarding schools. Now that is love. Share the experience.

Tempting as it is to have children sharing and a guest room, I think I may have to do separate rooms for Liebs and Stormy. (Although Liebs has stated repeatedly he wants to share rooms when the time comes...) See, I'm not helpful too, right Nutter?

I'm leaning towards separate rooms, actually. It's more the disproportionate size of the rooms that bugs me.

The number of times I've flirted with the idea of just moving home to have equal sized rooms ... not good.

When growing up, DH's room was three times the size of BiL's and I don't think they were that bothered. If you have bedrooms for sleeping only then the play-space is less of an issue. Can you put up a screen or internal wall and have a space cupboard/playspace and similar sized rooms?

Mebbe.

Trying to tell myself that it won't matter for ages, given DS2 is only 15 months old...

I like that thought. Here, we have three rooms and Liebling's room is about 1/4 the size of the other two bedrooms. Of course, that means that Liebs and Stormy could have the same sized room, but then DH and I would need bunk beds. But who wouldn't want that?

We're currently thinking that when we need Stormy to have a separate room to us, we'll convert part of the loft for Liebling. Who may well be at boarding school anyway at that point. And I can see how that is completely an option for you too LOL.

Hmmmm, interesting..... Do let us know what you decide....

I have pondered this for when #2 comes along (after they've shared with DH and I awhile;) ), but there'll be an almost 4 year age gap. I wonder whether DS will be too set in his ways to want to share. Like Zazou, DS only wants to be where we are, so a playroom is useless atm. All these reasons not to share, but I still think it'd be nice for them.... And DS can talk someone else's ear off in the middle of the night instead of his 3-4 nightly visits to tell us he's lonely!

We done have the playroom, but have the spare bedroom/sewing/storage room instead, which does work as a playroom as they girls do sometimes head there to play or get away from each other.
The girls are fine together in the one room, only wardrobe space is a problem now which DH is going to rectify with some shelf mods

I completely understand where you're coming from on the different room sizes. DDs 1 and 2 currently share a room through their choice (thank goodness given that DD3's arrival meant that my work from home DH still has an office), but when the time comes that they want their own room, their rooms are a good 40% bigger than DD3's and that seriously bugs me too. Stupid, especially given that DD3's room is still a big room, but I really like equality for the kids. To my mind you never no what things will affect them, whether they realise its affecting them or not ITMS.

We currently have as I said above shared bedroom for DDs 1 and 2, single for DD3, and a toy room. We're in the process of designing a new house and I am very close to tossing the idea of a toy room completely. There are big advantages to a toy room - separate space for the kids, close the door on it etc - but I also dislike the way it segregates the family. So, I guess in your position for the time being I would probably move your treadmill, bike etc into the back room, have some toys in there that the kids can use while you're in there, but make it an "everybody" room, rather than just a kid room

I only have one child at the moment, but I love having a play room! I would try and have them room together, but if they were keeping each other awake maybe move them?