[thriftyqueen]

We live in a 1919 craftsman home. The set up is really dumb (4 tiny bedrooms with very little closet space). We were contemplating selling, but we got a steal on the house and are thinking if we stayed for a while, we could save up a nice chunk of change.

The way our house is set up, we have 3 bedrooms upstairs and 1 one on the main floor. Two of the bedrooms upstairs are smallish while the other is tiny. Right now my DS (only child) is in the tiny room upstairs because the other rooms have angled low ceilings and his loft bed doesn't fit. The bedroom on the main floor is his playroom. It is a decent sized room, but has two doorways (one goes to kitchen/patio door and other goes to hallway which leads to upstairs and living room/front entry).

I am thinking that it might be sort of nice to move his bedroom to the main floor because it is a bigger room and we wouldn't have to have a bedroom and a playroom for him. We could just have a combo room. BUT I am concerned about having him on the main level when we are upstairs. He is 5 (6 in Feb.) and I am wondering if that is too young to be on a different level. The bathroom is upstairs so he would have to come upstairs to go, which he is used to because it is the only bathroom in the house. My main concern is if he went outside without us knowing. Or what if someone broke in (doubtful in our community), but is still freaks me out a bit.

Would you have your 5 year old on the main level when you are sleeping upstairs? Am I just being overly cautious?

I am thinking I could use the small room upstairs as my craft room. That way I would have a space to put my stuff so it is organized and not everywhere.

Sorry to ramble. Just trying to make my house more organized and workable so we can stay in it longer.

 

[[email protected]]

It all depends on your comfort level, how well you could hear your ds if he needs you at night, and how he would react if he woke during the night. I know several people who have this set up. One uses a baby monitor and always makes sure all the windows and doors are latched. One other thing to consider is, would activity in the other rooms bother your ds? We stayed with friends whose child has a bedroom on the main living floor and my dd had a hard time sleeping because the adult activity in the other rooms kept her up (talking, doing dishes, TV etc).

What is the problem with the current set up - is it the size of the room? We set our two kids up in a sort of alcove and use our second bedroom as a playroom/guestroom. The "bedroom" is really only used for sleeping and sometimes quiet reading so the size really doesn't matter. Can he give up the loft and move into the third bedroom?

You can always try it out temporarily.

 

[momto l&a]

I personally couldn't have a young child on the first floor while we slept on the second.

Heck I don't care for the kids sleeping upstairs while we sleep down stairs.

 

[sabrinat]

I don't think I'd be comfortable with my child on the ground floor alone. However...I also sort of baffled by the concept of a playroom. When I was growing up we played in our room or outside. Our house was alway tidy and I never remember feeling like "gosh, if only we had a playroom".
But I guess that wasn't really what you were asking.

 

[thriftyqueen]

The purpose of the playroom for us was that his room now is literally the size of a closet. He has room for his bed and a small dresser that is all. We use the main floor bedroom for the playroom so he is close to where I am. This is why I thought about having his bedroom on the main floor. I like the idea of it all being together (playroom and toys), but I don't know about the noise level. That is my DH's concern, too. I suppose if we had people over it would be harder to get him to bed. I guess the set up we have now works, but it is just a hard configuration. With a family of 3, the 4 bedrooms is unnecessary aside from the fact that the rooms are super tiny. None of the rooms fit more than a bed and 1 little dresser. Except for the main floor bedroom. It really is a pain sometimes. Gotta love old houses.

 

[lightheart]

we have 5 and a 3.5 sharing room downstarirs and we are upstairs in a loft, it's pretty open and we can hear things easily but still it bothers me sometimes. I worry about them being alone downstairs, why? not afraid of someone getting in without us knowing, we are way too rural and have a dog, if it were to happen we'd all be in trouble... I guess I want them to be near...

For easing your concerns, could you put an alarm on the doors, something you set everynight or that automatically turned on, not for people coming in but in case he went out.

For potty for him, what about a bucket/pee pot? You would have to empty it, I wouldn't trust him at his age and I would put bounderies, only at night and no #2, I had a bucket upstairs when I was pregnant, there were times I would of never made it down.

Can you block one of the doorways in the room downstairs? put the dresser in front of it, or even installing a lock, that would only leave one way out

FWIW, the boys will come upstairs and get in bed wiith us alot during the night, they have co-slept entirely though up until about a year ago.

sounds like you want a playroom of your own

a craft room upstairs, If we had a whole extra room, even if it was only a closet I would love to have a place for my stuff instead of having it in the corner, I make the corner work but...

 

[sphinxie]

Aren't there two not-tiny bedrooms upstairs? Could he be in one of those bedrooms? Although I understand that his loft bed doesn't fit, perhaps he could have a different bed?

 

[thriftyqueen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sphinxie Aren't there two not-tiny bedrooms upstairs? Could he be in one of those bedrooms? Although I understand that his loft bed doesn't fit, perhaps he could have a different bed?

He used to have his bedroom in the other room, but the problem was that he could hear the train all night from that room (south window facing a train track 1 block away...whistle blowing all the time). He never slept well in that room so we moved him into the tiny room.We got the loft bed so there would be room for a dresser type thing under it since the room is so small.)

I think I am just going to have to keep the arrangement how it is. There are too many cons to moving him to the main floor. I wish we could move our room to the main floor, but it is too narrow of a room for our bed. It wouldn't even fit a full size bed and we have a queen!

 

[brittneyscott]

Well I know you didn't mention this before and I'm assuming you are planning on selling eventually from your post??, but could you remodel to make the rooms bigger? Maybe knock out a wall b/t 2 rms to make one big one or something? DH and I are looking at buying an old house from 1900 (putting a bid in tomorrow

) and its going to need some remodeling. The house is actually pretty big with nice sized rms but the rm I want to use for DS is kind of small and the bathroom is tiny! Like there is only one space to stand in the bathrm and its a 360* turn to the toilet, sink or tub! There is a narrow dining space? behind the bathrm and DS's rm so we plan on knocking out that wall and extending his rm and the bathrm later. Could you do something like that? Rearrange or remodel the rms in the house to make some bigger bdrms?

 

[thriftyqueen]

Unfortunately, there is no way to knock down walls. The stairway is in the middle of the upstairs and because it is considered a half story, all the angled way make it impossible. My son's room is actually a dormer (sticks out from the house in the front). I am going to include some pics so you can all get an idea of what I am talking about.

This pic is the outside of our house. You can see the dormer on the front (sticks out from front top of house). That is my DS's current room.
https://flic.kr/p/475700843
This is current playroom. This is the room I was thinking of making DS's room.
https://flic.kr/p/931673179 https://flic.kr/p/931673213
I like the idea of putting a dresser in front of one of the doors (probably one leading into kitchen) to block off one entrance. That's a great idea!

Keep the ideas coming. Thanks for all your suggestions!

 

[[email protected]]

Just wanted to say cute house! I love those bungalow styles.

No other suggestions other than keep him where he is and just let him play downstairs. If you don't want a dedicated playroom how about turning it into a family room with more grown up decor and hidden storage for toys?

 

[wombatclay]

Hmmmm...

So, I'm assuming right now your ds sleeps in the tiny-up, you sleep in a small-up, and there is the playroom-down. So is the other tiny-up available for your work space needs? Or maybe make that tiny-up into the playroom and convert the downstairs room into craft/family/sometimes guest space?

 

[accountclosed3]

it may be that the tiny-up was intended as a closet even if it has a window! even so, they do make creative bedrooms!

my suggestion is to consolidate toys and craft stuff and make the downstairs room a play-and-craft room!

 

[accountclosed3]

btw, if that is your finished basement, it looks great!

 

[thriftyqueen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zoebird btw, if that is your finished basement, it looks great!

Thanks! My husband did the work! We love it.

 

[Ellien C]

Wow - your house is SO clean and uncluttered.

I live in 1925 Craftsman traditional. We only have one of those rooms that only fits a twin bed and small dresser. In our house, that room was converted to a walk-in closet - which I totally love. It still has the original closet and 2 windows. Clothes hang in front of one window, but the other one provides light. Just wanted to give you an idea. Maybe you could a dressing room with make-up vanity in front of the window. That may or may not solve your other problems. I have a downstairs guest room and all the bedrooms upstairs. We don't have the low ceilings, eaves, dormer problem though. We looked long and hard for a house that would fit both the 4-poster bed AND my triple dresser with mirror. A lot of the houses in our neighborhood wouldn't fit both.

 

[thriftyqueen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ellien C Wow - your house is SO clean and uncluttered. I live in 1925 Craftsman traditional. We only have one of those rooms that only fits a twin bed and small dresser. In our house, that room was converted to a walk-in closet - which I totally love. It still has the original closet and 2 windows. Clothes hang in front of one window, but the other one provides light. Just wanted to give you an idea. Maybe you could a dressing room with make-up vanity in front of the window. That may or may not solve your other problems. I have a downstairs guest room and all the bedrooms upstairs. We don't have the low ceilings, eaves, dormer problem though. We looked long and hard for a house that would fit both the 4-poster bed AND my triple dresser with mirror. A lot of the houses in our neighborhood wouldn't fit both.

I wish I could say that my house always looks like that. I always keep the front two rooms clean, but the rest is not always that clean. That is a great idea to use the tiny room as a walk in closet. I had thought about that too. The bedrooms upstairs have pretty decent sized closets in them, which is amazing.

We are also in process of completely remodeling the kitchen, which is going to help with space issues in there. The other problem with an old craftsman home is the number of doors in each room. My kitchen has 4 doors in it (one to the basement, one to the space bedroom, one to the dining room, one to the office type room). It makes it hard to put much for counter top or cabinets in. We are going to be moving a door way, which is going to help immensely. My FIL is a cabinet maker so he is going to custom make the cabinets for me. I never thought I would be so excited to redo a kitchen. I love to cook, but it is hard the way it is now.

We are going to do mission style cabinets that go to the ceiling. Like these:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...icial%26sa%3DN

It will give me so much more cabinet space for my cherished kitchen items. I am a sucker for nice kitchen stuff.

Anyway, it is fun to hear from another Craftsman home owner. If you have other ideas for me or pics of your house, I would love to see them!