The Bedroom Shuffle

 Funny how these sorts of projects start.

Years ago when we were looking to move and searching through available housing inventories, our chief complaint was trying to find a house with three bedrooms together, one of which was the master bedroom. We had a young child and another one on the way at the time and the last thing we needed were bedrooms on the opposite side of the house from each other or even on different floors. This requirement really delayed our house search but eventually we prevailed. 

Flash forward another decade plus in years and we now have older children who wish they were farther away from us and a live-in parent who wishes her bedroom wasn't down a flight of stairs and in the far corner of our basement. So one evening while the live-in parent was still overseas visiting her other child, the subject of doing a bedroom swap came up and the project was immediately born.

The plan:

While mother-in-law is still overseas, I need to remove her stuff and finish remodeling that room. When I originally created the MIL Suite as we refer to it (just a bedroom, bathroom and living area but no kitchenette), I didn't do the flooring at the time. I wanted too but it just wasn't in the budget back then. So I want to redo the flooring of all those areas while I will have unfettered access to the room. I can paint it a different color and my oldest will move her bedroom into that area. Needless to say, she is terribly excited about it and suddenly volunteering to do oodles of work to get it done as quickly as possible. For now, I will just floor the bedroom and leave the other areas for later.

Once she is moved in, I need to repaint her old room. It has older carpet in it but still in good enough shape for now. The youngest one wants to move into it because it is much bigger than her current room. 

Then I need to tear up the carpeting in what will become the new MIL room because the youngest had several terrible industrial style accidents in there from the looks of it. I think they are remnants of her slime making phase. Anyway, once the carpet is replaced and the room repainted, I can move all of her stuff, currently crammed into our family room, up and into place.

Once that is finished, I can refloor the rest of the living area downstairs, redo the closet downstairs which hasn't been touched either, and do some electrical rejiggering to move MIL's private television upstairs to a room that doesn't have a hookup. 

Oh, and I have six weeks to get this all done before MIL returns. It is still too cold to work outside as I write this, so I have the time right now but I still hate timelines in general when it comes to stuff like this. But when all is said and done, every square inch of this house will have been touched by me at some point and perhaps I can now rest for awhile... at least a day, before starting over again.

Comments

  1. Sounds like you'll be super busy! Nice that your eldest is willing to help (motivation works wonders). Is you MIL in on the plan? Or will it be a surprise when she gets back?

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    1. She has been hinting at it for awhile but we did verify first and get her choice of room paint color before starting.

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  2. at first I was thinking you and your wife would move downstairs... for more privacy. We now have sleeping areas on three floors (I built a library in our walkout basement that serves as a guest bedroom--and it was used as an isolation room during COVID).

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    1. My wife would be loathe to give up the private bathroom and decadent shower that I remodeled for her in our bedroom suite.

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  3. Good grief, you are going to be busy! Busy hands are happy hands, the song says.

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  4. Anytime someone is "volunteering to do oodles of work," that's a good thing!

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    1. Sometimes. I'm a bit persnickety when it comes to projects like this. But the older one has proven to be a good painter so we'll see.

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  5. I think this will be right up your alley, as they say, but having a time constraint isn’t helpful.

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    1. Especially when Mother-in-Laws are involved!

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  6. I know it will be a lot of work on your part, but it sounds like an exciting shakeup for everyone! We did several swaps like that over the course of the years (between three children). Does the MIL know her accommodations will be different when she returns?

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  7. That sounds like an excellent plan but also a LOT of work. And a tight time-line! I would love to see before and after pictures if you're comfortable sharing. I love seeing transformations of rooms and houses!

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    1. I am taking pictures and writing up posts as I go along so stay tuned.

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  8. Wow that is a great winter project! :)

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    1. That probably would have been better started a month ago!

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  9. Swapping sounds like it would be easy but it is always quite complex because of the order of taking things out and putting things in place is backwards. But, once it is done, it is such an accomplishment!

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    1. And also the fact that everyone wants to personalize their space which requires effort on my part.

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  10. Ed, we are in the midst of experimenting with the use of bedrooms as children leave. One has currently become a craft-ish room, which leaves at least one more for now. When the youngest leaves for college, I do not suppose we can take that over right away (although that is technically the "office" for this house).

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    1. I have great plans for a library/writing room for one of these future bedrooms.

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  11. I was worried at first that your MIL was going to be surprised by the change, but I see she is in on the plan. Sounds wonderful to me. A lot of work though. I wish you were our neighbor so we could ask you for advice. I didn't say help because I see you are very busy.

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    1. Fortunately I have started with the hardest bedroom first. The other two should be relatively easy.

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  12. Idle hands are the devil's tools, as the saying goes. You can rest secure in the knowledge that you are not a tool!

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