A Room for Teens

Back in 2000, we finished our basement to make a large playroom for the kids.  At the time, our kids were 8, 6 and 3, so we furnished the room with one couch (handed down from my parents) three beanbag chairs, low book cases and large plastic bins.  It was perfect for their needs.  They had plenty of room to store their books and toys.  Everything was within their reach so they didn't have to ask for help from Mommy or Daddy every time they wanted a toy.

The years have passed and what worked well then doesn't work so well now.  When my 15-year-old has a bunch of her friends over to watch a movie, they aren't so comfortable on the one couch and the bean bag chairs designed for kids ages 5 to 12.  They also don't need as much room for toys.  My son has some toys (he's 10 now), but he tends to play video games and build lego collections more than anything else these days. 

So we decided that the time had come to change the kiddie room into a room for teens.  We are fortunate enough to be getting a great couch set from my brother who has moved into a new home and has no room for it.  That will give us seating space for 10 to 12 people.  We also decided to replace the low book cases, by wall-unit shelves.  We went shopping at IKEA yesterday, with the kids, to pick the shelves.  The kids wanted some that were a bit too expensive for our budget, so we overrode the decision and went with some natural pine shelves that we can build to fit our needs.  The kids didn't like the plain color of natural pine, so we agreed that we could stain the wood a different color before building the shelves.  Since the new couches have a Mexican color scheme, we chose to stain the shelves Terra Cotta. 

After dinner tonight, we all changed into old clothes and gathered together in the garage to stain the shelves.  It took us about 3 hours to stain the 20 shelves and the mounting rails.  We got the expected rants every so often of "This is boring!" or "My back hurts!" or "This is taking so long!", but we got it done and we got to spend some fun time as a family doing a project that we can all be proud of.  Of course that was only the first coat of stain, so we still have another couple of hours of work to do tomorrow to get the second coat done.  Then we have to build the shelves and go through everything that we have in the playroom to see what stays and what goes.  It's fun!  We'll have several more days of family time getting the room transformed into the perfect room for teens. 

And then when the kids have their friends over, they can say with pride that they helped get the room to its new look.  After all, it is THEIR room.  My husband and I hardly go there, unless it's to play a game with the kids.  So it makes sense that they should work at making the room their own... don't you agree? 

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Lucie Bouchard Antoniazzi

Regular Columnist, All in a Mom-Day's Work 

Comments

[Sue Donckels]

Yes, I agree! That sounds like a wonderful project. My kids helped paint their bedrooms about a year ago, and that created some comments like yours, "This is tiring," "My wrist hurts," and the like. But when they do it themselves it is so much more fun, and less work for Mom and Dad!

Congratulations on your project. Sounds fun!