I’ll start with kid spaces first since it seems like that is often a point of contention for a lot of families. There are a few challenges that come to mind when I think of my kid’s room; it needs to be a space that fosters good sleep hygiene. It also needs to be easy to maintain for the age of that occupant. Finally, it needs to have some character of “home” to create consistency from one house to another because we are a family that moves quite frequently. (Which has its silver linings; more on that later…)
Military housing is often pretty basic with off white textured walls, very standard builder grade personality lacking features and often, super gross carpet. A lot of rentals are guilty of this too, but I digress. To try and create a “home” similarity of feeling between many different bedroom spaces I use textiles. Rugs, curtains, bedspreads, and other linens help warm up the space, can be moved with you and add a lot of personality without being stuff that I have to pick up, clean around or change back before leaving. It’s loud without being cluttered, if you know what I mean. And if tastes change its pretty easy to swap around and out of a room for variability, if need be. (Which, if you are me, need often be. HA!) But most importantly, it creates a familiarity for my kid’s that goes from place to place that they associate with “their rooms” and “my place to sleep”.
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Along those lines, I keep the inventory of toys and stuff pretty low in here. My 7 year old is nonverbal and autistic so it’s important to keep things pretty minimal stuff wise. That way he can continue to develop more independence skills around dressing and laundry as well as it not becoming too distracting of a space that would mess with his sleeping routine. Books rotate in and out of this room on a daily basis and stuffed animals are pretty much the only toy object outside of nightlights that live in here.
Now let’s talk about clothes. Although he has a rather large closet in his room, we only use this half of it. Full disclosure, I washed all of his laundry before taking these photos, so you have an accurate idea of the real inventory of his room. Shirts, jackets and a few costume items are hung on the bar and dirty laundry goes in the basket at the bottom. On the top shelf are a pair of boots he doesn’t wear on a daily basis, a bin of “to grow into clothes” and a small box of sentimental items. That’s it for the closet.
The rest of his clothes live in the white dresser on the other side of his room. Top drawer is underwear, socks and swimsuits, middle drawer is shorts and pants, and bottom drawer is pajamas. This set up helps my son get a grasp on picking out his own clothing throughout the day as well as working on putting his own clothes away without being overwhelmed by the quantity of items. Since I do the washing, it is also a manageable amount for me, being just a load of laundry once a week. He definitely has more shirts than that, but I find we tend to need a shirt swap once a day or so which works out well for us.
I am just now realizing I didn’t picture the cabinet contents. In there are two shelves, one holding a few knit sweaters and some extra blankets. Because we are a military family, we tend to jump climates in our moves so right now a lot of the extra layers are not needed but will be eventually. This is more a keep for “when”, not a keep for “if” sort of thing.
These pictures are not the best so please bear with me, the natural lighting in our house is pretty scarce as well as one of my phone camera lenses being also broken and needing replacement but since it is still functioning, I carry on.
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