Was it unreasonable to turn my daughter’s old room into an office?

[StorageUnitdisageement]

Dsd moved in with her partner 7 months ago. She didn’t take much with her as wanted to get new things , she has popped back now and then to get bits and was still referring to it as her room.

Ive now found a wfh role and want the room as a home office. We told her this and asked her to come and sort her things out. She didn’t. So the old furniture is now gone and everything else in storage boxes / vacuum bags and I’ve rented a small storage unit.

She has gone absolutely crazy! Thinks we should have left her room ‘just in case’ and begging to have it put back suddenly saying she was planning to stay occasionally and ‘what about Christmas’ I said at Christmas or whenever if you need to stay we can get a mattress in there and that’s not acceptable to her.

I thought waiting 7 months was ages !!!

Do any other adult children who have moved out have bedrooms in your home still? Has she been treated any differently because she's your husband's daughter?

About to go through similar myself DD will be moving out at the end of the year with BF. younger daughter already measuring up for new curtains 🤣🤣 as the room is bigger and has an en-suite.
That said the room YD is vacating will still be a bedroom that elder daughter can use anytime.
I do intend to downsize in the future (large 4bed currently) but will still have 3 bedrooms just in case and maybe for grandchildren to stay in future

I think they have rooms they could sleep in when they come to visit. Even if it’s a sofa bed or a futon. But maybe that’s just my family and friends’ families.

Do you have children?

Why would they if they’d be treated like strangers?

I don’t see why not. They can make the room into an office or a craft room or whatever, while, for instance, leaving her bed and duvet in there. It’s that simple. Like a guest room, except for family whom a person would think, you’d want to feel welcome.

"I am an adult now!!"

"Ok"

"Wait.....you can't treat me like an actual adult and expect me to take full responsibilty! What if I fuck up?!"

YANBU

Then you have more money than sense or fewer kids than bedrooms.

If she wants to live as a fully fledged grown up then she should be shown respect for that decision, which means everyone moves on one step. If she wants to cosplay at adulting then she should pay board to keep"her" room safe.

I’d be showing her respect by repurposing the room while preserving her place in the family, instead of slamming the door behind her.

Hahaha some of the comments on this thread are mental.

My dad starting painting my bedroom for my sister on the day I moved out.

The same thing happened when she moved out.

When the youngest finally left home, builders were brought in and walls were demolished.

What a pair of bastards, wanting to use and enjoy the space in their own home 😂

Well, if it’s Christmas she’s worried about, point her to

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/duvet-know-its-christmas-people-are-sharing-their-hilarious-christmas-sleeping-arrangements_uk_5c2098ece4b0407e907ce6d8

(I don’t do Instagram).

There's a range of responses and I wonder if this is the difference between only children or well off children who all had their own room and those of us who grew up over crowded, lol.

When my brother moved on my sister wasted no time in moving into his room (there were 3 of us girls in one room), when my sister moved out and got her own flat, I went straight in, when I moved out the room was left as it was with my furniture and my brother has to move back into it with his wife, then he got settled and I moved back when I was heavily pregnant after I almost fell down the stairs to my flat and mum insisted it wasn't safe for pregnant mums or babies in buggies. No one was offended or bothered about being replaced.

Now I have adult children who are about to move out and their sisters have made no secret about their plans for the rooms, lol.

Once you are an adult, you need to start adulting.

She's an adult who moved out. If she wanted to keep the room she should be paying for it.
It's not like you can't change it back if needs be. She's being ridiculous.

OP, as long as you’ve made it clear she can always come back if it doesn’t work out you’ve done nothing wrong. You can’t be expected to keep a room as it was forever. I actually think you’ve done a very kind thing in renting a storage unit. I moved out at a similar age and anything I didn’t take with me or wasn’t wanted by others at home was taken to charity or the tip by me. It’s disrespectful of her to assume you should keep it just in case. If I’d of wanted to store my things, I’d of been the one paying for the unit not my parents.

You need to have a chat with her to make sure everything’s ok in her relationship and reassure her but beyond that it’s your home now so crack ok.

How about a 25 year old having a meltdown because we made her room into a spare one? All her stuff is stored in the loft and she can have it when she wants. 7 years it took for us to get round to it.

Is she an only child?

You might say that they don’t come home, but where we live adult children do come home very very regularly when they realise they need to in order to save for a deposit
Neighbour had all 3 adult children and their partners move back to save money for a house deposit within a few months of each other

Which is completely irrelevant to this situation as the OP clearly already said they have purchased a flat together.

But the OPs DD has already saved for a deposit and bought a flat.

There's some ridiculous replies on this thread. People who no longer talk to their parents because they've repurposed their room that they no longer need.

Seriously? Hopefully one day they'll grow up and realise how insane that is.

No, you did nothing wrong. Enjoy your home office.

Dsd has bought a flat with her partner therefore the move is considered permanent by Op. If she had bought and moved in with a husband instead of a partner would people still think her old bedroom should be preserved in aspic? Why should the dsd have 2 bedrooms at her disposal when Op needs an office to work from home? Op has said that dsd can come back if the relationship fails so where is the problem? Also a wait of 7 months is not exactly throwing dsd out of the door and is a reasonable amount of time, surely.

I am also interested to know whether you have your own children and if they have moved out yet

My family home was large, but “only” had 4 bedrooms. I have 3 siblings, my brothers shared. The day I left for uni - at 18 - the younger of my two brothers carried his single bed down the stairs to claim my room as his own.

When I came back from uni I stayed in an outside, standalone room that we used to watch tv in.

Similar will happen here - my youngest, also of four, has the smallest room but when he enters the last few years of school he’ll move into one of his oldest siblings old rooms as they have more space and are better for study. Two are at uni.

It seems unreasonable to keep adult children’s rooms forever, just in case.

I personally think 21 is too young and 7 months moving out is too short to be giving up her room. She got with him when she was 19 yo, that’s hardly a signifier of a lasting relationship that will see her permanently moving away. Perhaps a hybrid conversion could have been done at this stage.

But it’s changed so I would allow her to be upset and assure her (if the case) that should she need to return she will have a home with you.

We had the same scenario. Eldest DD moved out to live with her boyfriend. DH got a WFH job and needed office space so we moved the wardrobes in her old room and put his desk, cabinets etc all along that wall. We left her bed exactly where it was, and all made up, just in case she ever came home to visit and wanted to stay over.

We told her what we were doing with her room in advance and that we would leave her bed.

She was fine with this arrangement and yes, she did come back and have nights where she stayed with us because it was late to go home, and she stayed in it when she came at Christmas.

Can you not just put her bed back? Was it necessary to use up the whole room?

My DH's work desk is a massive standing desk, with room for 3 monitors and a laptop, plus 3 filing cabinets, and we still left her bed in situ for her.