Teenage Dream

Her new room right after she took everything out of drawers
but before she decided to put things back

If you live with a teenager, or if you ever were one, you'll understand this well. My 14 year old is floating around the house on a cloud of happiness because, after sharing a room with her sister for 12 years, she's finally getting her own room. Darryl and his brother shared a bedroom right up until they moved away to college. I shared a room with a sister who is 10 years younger than me (not as terrible as you might think) so both of us understand her feelings. We're trying to make to make the transition easy for her sister - we don't want her to feel left out - so we're encouraging them to help each other make over both bedrooms and share the experience. Little did we know what kind of chaos we were letting ourselves in for.

The spare bedroom has taken the brunt
of the mess

Put it this way: In order for a 14-year-old girl to decorate her new bedroom, it apparently requires using about 500 square feet of space around various other rooms in the house to organize, sort, consider and decide. She has things in my bedroom, her new bedroom and the spare room. I had no idea she owned so much stuff. The posters alone need several days of attention before she can put them in exactly the right place on the wall. Organizing the bookcase isn't as simple as alphabetizing by author, or even book title. No, each one must be perfectly placed so that it matches the ones to the left and right. And trying to decide which magazines from two years ago are necessary and which ones can be recycled seems to require major meditation.

These books don't have a home yet, so they're
still on the floor of my bedroom

In a way we got lucky with this part of the move. She liked the color that Darryl and I had in our room and told us she wanted to keep it just like that. So besides a few touch ups, and painting the closet, the room was ready to move into once the new floor and baseboard were in. We told the girls that they would have to sleep in the spare room for a few days until the smell of paint had gone. That might have been our mistake, because now she feels she has all the time in the world to make her new room perfect while occupying a beautiful new room in the house in the meantime. Still, I can't really blame her. After all, it took Darryl and I seven months to get our new room ready, so maybe I shouldn't begrudge her a few more days to make her new room just right for her.

Well, at least the floors look great!