shared bedroom for w & c (one room challenge week 1)

It is my favorite time of year (cough * design nerd * cough)! The spring edition of One Room Challenge starts today and I am delighted to be participating for the third (!) time. Buckle up for a long post today...

For those new to One Room Challenge, each spring and fall, participating bloggers select one room to transform over a period of six weeks. Six weeks may seem like a ton of time, but if you have been following along on our remodel journey, you’ll be realizing by now that six weeks is a drop in the bucket. It is truly mind-blowing to see the transformations that both the featured designers and guest participants come up with over the duration of the challenge. You can follow along with the guest participants here and with the featured designers here.

Let's start our little challenge. With our house still under construction, I needed a guinea pig who was willing to put in the work on a very quick turn-around for this edition. Fortunately, my cousin and her husband had the need for a transformation and were willing to do the work. Baby number 3 arrives this fall and is currently without a nursery.

the kids' rooms today

Whitney and Dusty share their three-bedroom house with their two kids, W and C. Currently, W, age five, has his own room as does his little sister, C, age almost three. W has two antique twin beds in his room that Whitney would love to keep for the kids’ shared room.

Dusty is concerned that the room is too small for the kids to play, and that they may need to opt for bunkbeds. Whitney has a very clean, traditional aesthetic that I think it is safe to say does not include bunkbeds. She is much more inclined to something like this or this in a shared kids’ room. Whitney is not attached to any of the other furniture in W’s room but would like to keep the bedding if possible.

C is still in her toddler bed (formerly her crib). The toddler bed will be reconverted into a crib for the nursery once the kids have been moved into the same room. The dresser in C’s room can be used either in the nursery or the kids’ shared room. The shelf in C's room is one of a pair of IKEA shelves that Whitney spray painted gold and were formerly in her living room. The corner chair will remain with the nursery, whichever room that ends up to be. 

Whitney’s biggest concern is storage (anyone else relate to that?). Both kids’ closets are currently crammed with clothes.

W and C might be the biggest clothes horses of their age. Just kidding. The kids have a ton of hand me downs that Whitney is storing for as the kids grow. C’s closet is the bigger of the two. It is the current home of the kids’ play kitchen. C’s dollhouse also lives in her room but most of the other toys that the kids play with on a day to day basis are in the living room. Whitney would like to reconfigure the kids' closet to something like this or this. Fortunately, her husband is a builder.

Whitney’s other concern is color. Both rooms are painted beige with a greenish-khaki trim. This same palette runs thru the entire house. With time and budget, Whitney would have every room repainted. She is willing to repaint the kids’ room, but because the trim color runs through the whole house, we are stuck with the trim for now. We are also stuck with the beige wall to wall carpet in both rooms. Thank goodness for area rugs.

the plan

So far, we've discussed that the kids need to share a room, that the room needs two beds (possibly two separate twin beds, possibly a bunkbed), and that the room needs to have storage for the kids' clothes. The color palette of the room needs to take into consideration the existing paint trim color (khaki) and Whitney would like to use the existing bedding from W's room (navy).

But what about the kids? What do they want? W loves that his room has two beds but is definitely willing to forgo them for “bump” beds. C’s wish for her new room is a “big girl bed”. Both kids claim blue as their favorite color, although C also adds pink and purple to her list. And let's all remember that "blue" means a lot of things to a lot of people. W would love a PJ Mask painting for his room (Mom says absolutely not, Dad says a poster is fine, Mom says over my dead body - that's a loose translation of the interaction, I think) and claims tigers as his favorite animal. C wants babies and princesses and crayons to make her room perfect.

Our challenge here is two-fold. Practically speaking, we need to plan a room that has enough space for two kids and all their stuff. Ideally, that would include space for the kids to play and space for the kids to grow into. We also need to combine Whitney’s traditional aesthetic with the kids’ preference for cartoon characters, primary colors, and bling.

Floor plans

Let’s start with the practical. Both kids’ rooms are about 11’ x 11’. C’s room is about one foot longer, which in this case really makes a difference. Here's a quick sketch of the floor plans today:

You can see that there is not much space between the door to W’s room and the foot of the twin bed.

If we put bunkbeds in W’s room, we will create enough space to also add a dresser, but not enough to add a play space.

We can put two twins or a bunk in C’s room with a little extra space.

Again, the two twins do not provide enough space for a dresser or play space. The bunkbed in C’s room allows for both a dresser and play space.

C’s room provides a lot more flexibility. Next week, we will look at inspiration for how we might decorate either proposed floor plan, make a choice about layout, and hopefully, make a choice about color palette. In the meantime, check out what the other guest participants are planning on the One Room Challenge website.