Brainstorming the bedroom 'issue'

Eesh, I just can't remember to do this every day, which means I can't get into the habit, which means I only do it on those rare occasions I remember. Blimey.

SO! The boys bedroom is DONE! dark bamboo flooring (that also goes out his room & along the landing), white walls, new skirting, and his awesome high sleeper bed with wardrobe, shelves, desk underneath. It leaves him plenty of floorspace to lay out his train tracks or hot wheels tracks, his clothes all have a home, some of his toys can live in his room AND he can tidy them away afterwards, and he has space for some of his books. As he gets older he'll be able to sit as his desk to do drawings or homework and maybe he'll eventually have a computer...when he's OLD. Because of the bed style, there's still space for an ottoman/blanket box in the bay window where his bedding & assorted cuddlies live, and we think there will be space for a narrow bookcase too. I'm *really pleased, and it looks really nice - I even put bunting up - red white & blue, and in the open shelves we have red storage boxes, blue bedding and curtains, and the wall is blue above the picture rail. He has a blue clock and a couple of star shaped blue lights on the wall (to go with the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling) and of course the toys that are out on the shelves are all 'nice' toys - a red wooden ark, a wooden farm with a red roof, and so on. It looks smart and attractive and SO FAR (nearly a week) he's even kept it tidy by putting his toys away again after he's played with them - which of course was half the point.

SO! two more bedrooms upstairs. Our room is the smaller of the two (but it looks out of the gardens and allotments and the field beyond that, whereas the bigger room looks out onto the road and the houses opposite) and ours is alomst more junk-dumped than the front bedroom. That room is filled with J's guitars, amps, leads, pedals, and so on, and also his home-brew equipment - including some demi-johns with wine in - his CDs on shelves, three bookcases (which I colour-coordinated and they look so much better!) and the rest of the boys toys. Our room basically has everything else - one whole wall taken up by mirrored wardrobes - and opposite the bed, eek -obviously filled with clothes, shoes, coats etc. We also have things like photo albums, my almost-entire yarn stash (which obviously needs some whittling but I can in no way do that), my shoe collection, my nail varnish collection, my make up, two jewellery boxes (one for good, one for 'junk' jewellery) and also a jewellery manniquin on my bedside cabinet for everyday stuff. I've got a mini handbag with hair clips bands ties and flowers, we've got a chest with bedding and spare duvet. Under the bed is the suitcase, my camera equipment, my studio lights, tripod, etc, and we've got sleeping bags, backpacks, holdalls and I have just a few handbags ;) Then there's a box of fabrics I use for lining knitted bags or making cushion covers or what have you, a box of out-of season clothes - at the moment filled with swim gear, sun hats, and shorts, a box of cosplay gear - clothes that are needed for our costumes but really don't need to be in the wardrobe as we use them maybe 5 times a year in total (two Expos, one film and comic con, one usually-pirate party and one halloween!). There's my one and only wedding hat, a box of spare bathroom supplies - buying in bulk is the cheaper way to do it, but when you have no storage in your bathroom, maybe not the best - a box of sentimental stuff - childhood memories, things from our engagement, our wedding, the boys birth & some birthdays. There's a box of Jem dolls who are desperate for a place to live out on display :D oh and there's a box of birthday party stuff - pirate tablecloths, bunting, banners, balloons, paper plates etc. There's probably more but this is just using my memory...

I have to clear all this out before I can even *begin* to do my room. EEEEEK.

Okay - so some can go up into the loft, I suppose. Party box, out of season clothes, maybe even fabrics if we can guarantee that the loft is NOT damp (some of our Christmas decorations were not perfect when we got them down last year). We're hoping we can put in a dressing table type area, which will hopefully give my girly stuff a home - well, make up, hair stuff, nail varnish (I class it separately as I have a lovely sized collection and YES I do where them all. Sometimes 10 at one time ;)), jewellery boxes (one is a beauitiful silver box with indian elephants on, and one is my nans old jewellery box I used to browse through for hours playing with her trinkets, so I do have to keep both - useful, attractive, AND sentimental all in one. I'm hoping to keep the blanket box for duvet & bedding storage, but the suitcase can go to the loft as we holiday maybe twice a year - maybe with the out-of-season clothes in it as timing would be roughly correct. We could then use under the bed still for my photog. stuff but maybe also a clear underbed thing for my yarn..? sleeping bags, spare duvets - maybe loft. Photo albums want to be somewhere accessible - and I'm looking forward to putting so many pictures up in frames on the walls, once we've got rid of the different busy-textures on every wall - so they should also take up less space as there won't be so many to hang on to unframed. Studio lights can go in the loft (how strong is our loft!?) but the rest should be accessible else I'll never use them. Holdalls can also go in the loft as we rarely go away for short breaks and when we do we're likely to know about it enough in advance to get them down. Sentimental stuff should go into a beautiful box and maybe go on top of a wardrobe with the photo albums so it's accessible but not in the way, and Jem dolls can stay in the new wardrobes until I work out the perfect place. Bathroom stuff WILL go in the bathroom once I've bought a storage cabinet and maybe cosplay gear in the loft too. That way - my wardrobe can have shoes and handbags in the bottom of it, like a normal person.

Blimey. How strong *is* the flooring in the loft? Maybe we should lay proper floor down up there before we take all this up there.