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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Who Gets the Big Bedroom?

58 replies

Awks · 14/09/2014 21:21

I've 2 lovely dd's (22 and 14). Dd1 has been at uni for 3 years and is now elsewhere starting a years postgrad. She's a bit of a home bird and didn't really settle in at uni so came home a fair bit back to her big bedroom This rankled with dd2 as she was still stuck in the boxroom while her big sis flitted between uni and home. They had occasional words about whether this was fair or not, and my view was that dd1 had to come to the decision herself to swap rooms.

Anyhow she's now gone off to start her postgrad and is living in a family owned palace free of charge, living the life of riley and expecting dd2 to still stay in the boxroom.

AIBU to just tell her she has to swap? There will obviously always be a room for her here, it will just be smaller?

OP posts:

Original poster

Awks · 14/09/2014 21:43

He knows he can come and stay when he likes, but if you don't get their stuff out of your house it will still be there until they are 30, like a shrine grin

^^ probably.

Ok TY for the perspective, I appreciate it.

OP posts:

WAFFLEO · 14/09/2014 21:46

I left home at 21 and the day after I left, my brother started redecorating. Completely understandable as he'd been in the box room for all of his life and I wasn't there. Just tell DD1 that this is happening and she should, if thinking straight, agree. If she isn't ok with it....well that's just too bad! DD2 should be allowed to have the larger room as she's actually living there full time.

2kidsintow · 14/09/2014 21:49

DD1 has the big bedroom here and DD2 has the boxroom. There are lots of 'it's not fair' when she can't do/have something because her room is smaller.

It's been laid down flat that she's going to swap rooms when DD1 goes to college (if she does).

What we will do afterwards is anyone's guess if she does go and then chooses to come back as DD2 is 3 and a bit years younger and the right age to be going off the year after DD1 returns. But that's over thinking everything to be fair.

I stayed at home to go to college, so my younger sister had to wait 20 years for the bigger bedroom.

Original poster

Awks · 14/09/2014 22:02

dd2 is spread eagled out on the floor upstairs for the first time going aaaahhhhhhhhhh

OP posts:

AdmitYouKnowImRight · 14/09/2014 22:04

my view was that dd1 had to come to the decision herself to swap rooms.

I think you have favoured your DD1 over DD2 and TBH you don't sound very, well, dynamic, and able to manage things well. You may deem DD2 and adult because she is 22, but in reality she is your child and its your house and you have another child at home who is being sidelined.

MaidOfStars · 14/09/2014 22:09

cos she's a grown-up and that's the grown-up thing to do
But you are the grown up who owns the bedroom.

enriquetheringbearinglizard · 14/09/2014 22:15

Good for DD2.
We were lucky in that we relocated when DD1 was 16 and DD2 was 12. On the basis that DD1 had always had the bigger room and that she'd be leaving home soonest, we gave DD2 the choice of rooms.

Now, years later, when DD1 comes home she gets the guest room with an ensuite, mostly because she took her bed with her when she moved out and we haven't got round to buying a new one. She still drops her lip a bit, but she's been living with her partner for seven years now and I tell her, she really needs to let go

I suppose it's a bit the same as the stuff we're still storing, that's far too important to throw out and yet not quite important enough to take home with her.

Original poster

Awks · 14/09/2014 22:19

Admityouknow. I am not in the slightest dynamic. You've sussed me right out there guv. But never mind, I am quite lovely

Enrique I think that will be it - a bit of a dropped lip but shit happens, doesn't it. She'll survive.

OP posts:

Greenoes · 14/09/2014 22:23

The day after I moved out, my Dad chopped up my bed to make a garden seat...true story

Original poster

Awks · 14/09/2014 22:26

Greenoes do you post on stately homes by any chance

OP posts:

Greenoes · 14/09/2014 22:29

No stately homes for me! Just a dad with a sense of humour and a slightly inadequate tool box - my mum was hoping for a sewing room for her empty nest!

WitchWay · 14/09/2014 22:30

When I moved out of my big room to go to Uni, my brother refused to move out of his tiny room because he liked it

todayisnottheday · 14/09/2014 22:31

Did you post about this before? How did dd1 take it?

She is an adult but your house is her childhood home. We all regress a tiny bit at home (even if we manage to control it, the desire is there for a long time).

BOFster · 14/09/2014 22:34

There was a very similar thread recently, todayisnottheday, but from a different poster.

Awks, you should have a read, there was some good advice.

Original poster

Awks · 14/09/2014 22:41

That is a good thread, ty for bumping it. When my kids were tiny, I'd have been of the "just swap" persuasion but as they grow older it isn't as easy as home is a very precious thing, no matter who pays the bills. That's actually irrelevant anyway. However it is Dd2's turn now in my opinion

OP posts:

OraProNobis · 14/09/2014 22:43

Glad you've done the right thing now.

BOFster · 14/09/2014 22:51

I know what you mean about leaving home being a big thing: I'm about to go through it with dd1 myself. I'm planning on warning her to remove anything she would rather I didn't see, then I am going to go through it like a dose of salts, redecorate, everything. And if I find the iPad she "lost" two years ago amongst the general detritus, I will be keeping it .

OraProNobis · 14/09/2014 22:55

BOFster - the things we found when DS moved out would make anyone's hair curl! Was an eye opener for sure. Half of the surprise was that he was so unbothered at the prospect of his dirty little secrets being unearthed!

WandaDoff · 14/09/2014 22:59

You've done the right thing

I would perhaps break the news very gently to DD1 before her next visit.
Let her process the idea & have a wee stomp about it before she comes home.

Perhaps take them both out together to get new bedding etc?
Once the dust has settled a bit

littlemonster · 14/09/2014 23:08

Agree with getting the rooms generally sorted as soon as DC leave.

When I go to my parents I have a dressing table with drawers stuffed full of my teenage life as it was when I left to go to uni in 1988. Drawers with clothes I haven't worn since I was about 17. Even little trays of trinkets which haven't been touched since I lived there. There's boxes of Cosmos from when I was about 15 which would be a pretty interesting read I guess. Just loads and loads of teenage tatt. The bookshelves still have the UCAS/PCAS guides and a stack of prospectuses, all my old textbooks as well as childhood books. I live hundreds of miles away and they usually visit me. I haven't actually been back for 3 years.

They've never needed the space and I think felt a kind of bereavement over the fact that my siblings and I suddenly upped and left. They had 3 kids in 3 years, all close but all left home and moved within a couple of years so they went to being in the thick of teenage life with a houseful everyday as we lived near the high school, to just the two of them. In the early years I felt a bit heartless clearing it all out as I knew they were finding it hard (I was the youngest and last to leave) and then it just kind of sat there........must tackle it.

todayisnottheday · 14/09/2014 23:15

Ah right thanks bof.

Op you've made the right decision, I've had the same decision to make myself although dd made it easy for me bless her!

Home will always be home. Hopefully dd1 will see that it's the home not the bedroom

Original poster

Awks · 14/09/2014 23:19

People keep saying "when they leave". That's such a black and white statement though - dd went to Uni but she never consciously left home. She studied elsewhere but she lived here if that makes sense. Home was/is here hence the hanging on to the room.

But enough now, its dd2's turn for a double bed

OP posts:

fawltydoge · 14/09/2014 23:21

for another POV- when my sister (3 years older) moved away for uni I stayed in the box room and it didn't occur to me to think I should take her room! It had a bed, it had limited storage space, at 15 what else did I need in a bedroom?! that was her room and mine was mine

littlemonster · 14/09/2014 23:33

Awks yeah I agree the process of leaving can be extended. I would say now that I left home at 18 but when I was 18 I would never have said I was 'leaving home'.

Doesn't impact on the fairness to DD2 though and it does sound a little bit like this will be a step on the road to letting go for you.

BoomBoomsCousin · 15/09/2014 00:04

I can't believe you made your other daughter have a box room while your DD1 was at university. That doesn't sound "not dynamic but lovely". It sounds like you think your DD2 is less than your DD1.

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