Creative use of space

If I haven't mentioned this before, our house is on the small side. It's about 1200 sq. ft., plus the basement. The upstairs is about 220 sq. ft, about a third of which is hallway and attic space. That's not a lot of space left for 4 small people, especially when one of those is getting closer to adult size.

Last year, I started trying to figure out how we would rearrange the rooms to fit Rachel and Tori in one and Brendan and Owen in the other. There was a bunk bed in Brendan's room that fit okay. Because of the sloped ceiling, it was pushed against the closet, which meant only half the closet was really accessible but it worked. I hoped we could fit a twin bed with a trundle in the other room but when we measured, we realized there would be no space for toys or a dresser if we did that. It would literally take up the whole room.

We talked about making an L-shaped bunk bed specifically for that space and then I came across this in an Ikea catalog:

It's a loft bed that is just the right height for the ceilings in our rooms. We put them together in August and we now have a room for the girls and a room for the boys. I was going to buy new bedding for them but was debating about getting matching bedding. My mom made a comment when she was helping me put sheets on the beds (not an easy feat) and jokingly said that maybe I should just let them use a sleeping bag every night.

I started thinking about it and realized that there was no room on top or bottom bunk for a comforter to hang down. It would be a lot nicer if there was a blanket that was the same size as the bed. A sleeping bag wasn't a bad idea but hard to find really cute ones. I decided to make the no-sew fleece blankets for each of them. They're heavy enough that they tend to stay in place fairly well and easy to straighten out in the morning and keep the beds looking neat. It was also easy to find fleece that they would each love.

I bought matching fabric for Tori and Rachel. Besides the fact that they like matching, I was worried that they would like whatever the other had better.

This is Tori's bed. We bought these cute cubbies to give her more space for some things of her own. I actually bought a set for Rachel and Owen, too, but then decided maybe putting some of their favorite things right next to them in bed would encourage playtime and not sleeping. So those will be taken back. Or used in another spot.


And Rachel's cute little bed. I did not realize the outlet was right there until I took this picture. There will be outlet covers on that tomorrow.

Brendan's bed - he went with the U of M fleece. And again, he has the nifty cubbies to hold books and cd's and his mp3 player. Everybody needs a space to call their own.

And Owen's bed. He was supposed to get John Deere fleece but they were out of that so I went with another favorite - Cars. And again, I didn't realize until now that there is an outlet right there. That will be covered tomorrow as well.

The new roommate situation has worked out really well. The boys now go off and play up in their room (or listen to music and look at football cards) and the girls will go up and play in their room together. I love seeing them interact like that. It makes me think that maybe this house is still perfect for us. At least for now.