AIBU with rooms

[RFinley]

I need help figuring out if AIBU. We've got a 3 bed house, a 3 yr (f), a 5 yr (m) and an 19 yr (sd). 3 yr and 5 yr currently share a room, 19 yr has own room and splits time 50/50 between parents, so 3 nights week minimum at ours. We can't afford to move to a bigger house in the same area and we applied for planning for a double storey extension but it's looking like an extension is not going to be affordable or worth the cost for what the planning authority will grant . I also WFH full time and my desk is in our cramped bedroom. I've suggested instead that the younger children continue to share for the next 4 years or so, and that we build a small single storey extension or garden room onto the back of the house which will be an office. I've suggested that when sd turns 23/24 yrs shell be old enough not to have her own room and can have a day bed in the downstairs office to stay on when visiting, and kids at that point have own room. My husband is acting like I've suggested making sd homeless and that I'm an awful person. Really?! I moved out when I was 16 so maybe my perspective is influenced by that but I would not expect to maintain space for a bedroom for a grown up child in their 20s when we're desperate for space and I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest?

You're plan makes perfect sense. It's lovely that you're SD comes to stay, but it's not reasonable for you to keep a room for her when the other children need space.

Hope she'll be looking to get her own place in the next few years and your DH sees sense!

What are SD's plans? Uni? Working?

I think your plan sounds perfect. She needs somewhere to stay when visiting, but not necessarily a full time room.

My dd 19 spends most time at her bfs. We are moving and she is getting a sofa bed in the lounge!! Haven't told her yet!! Yanbu..

why are you WFH in your bedroom if there's a downstairs office - does DH WFH too?

If she's only there three days a week, I'd be looking at a desk in 'her' room when she isn't there.
& yes, when she is mid 20's and your two are older, of course they should have their own rooms, with a sofabed arrangement in the office.

She's 19 (so old enough to have her own house) and expects her little siblings to share a room, so that she can have her own room to be in 3-4 nights a week? Cheeky sod. Your room, little kids' shared bedroom and their play room, which has a sofa bed in for the 19 year old when she is there. If the extension happens an office and the 19 year old can decide where she wants a sofa bed. There is no way one person who is there 1/2 time and is old enough to rent a different house with different people if she really wants, gets to take space from two people who are there full time and couldn't rent or house share with mates for 13 years and 15 years minimum.

Your plan is perfectly reasonable. Given it's 5 years away though maybe put it in the pack burner for now. She'll move on her own

@stichguru what 19 year olds can afford their own house these days?
She’s not being cheeky by staying 3 or 4 nights, presumably that’s because she spends half her time with her mother.

@RFinley just because you left home young doesn’t mean you basically evict SD. It is comparatively much more difficult now to afford rent or save for a mortgage.

Thanks all this has made me feel much better and less shitty about suggesting it! Although a while a way we have decisions to make now based on what we do to make space for a full time office which we need to do sooner rather than later as the space in our room for a desk is not big enough and I'm getting back problems etc with the set up and tbf waking up 'at work' is pretty depressing, which has kind of forced the conversation because I want to do a small permitted development on the back of the house. My husband instead wants to convert our garage into a bedroom and a small office to maintain sd having her own full time bedroom. His reasoning is that she might not move out until she's 30. I don't think this is feasible because we have so much stored in the garage we won't have anywhere to put it, house is rubbish for storage as it is so I dont think its a good idea, our garage is also disgusting and needs a lot of work so on top of that it'll be a money pit. Sd has mentioned going to uni, but is not very independent so I'm worried how she'll get on or whether she will infact go, she has no interest in working at the moment either and I suppose that's where my husband is coming from. It's difficult!

@unospaghetto I'm not suggesting she moves out at all, and definitely not now. I'm suggesting she keeps her own room until about 23/24 (when the other two kids are too 'old' by social services standards to share a bedroom) and that she then loses the room with all her stuff in/decorated and that becomes another younger child's bedroom and she has the day bed in my office when she stays, which will be as much as she wants obviously but the difference is she won't be able to hang out in there when I'm working and it won't have all her stuff in. This is a solution 4/5 years away but we need to build whatever space we need now.

This isn't clear, is there another office space downstairs but your DH uses it to WFH?

I agree that dd doesn't need a room in the long term.

But I think it would be much more cost effective to get serious shed storage in the garden and/ or loft (and have a clear out) and convert the garage and make bedroom (even if tiny, it would be a bedroom) and your office.

It would certainly be cheaper than an extension.

You could even have a room with a sofa bed and lots of storage?

My sister and I shared a room and my brother had a room.
Then he moved to university and instead of moving sister into brother’s bigger, better room, our parents turned it into an office for my dad who already had an office ten minutes away.
My poor sister.
Then when I was 20, my parents moved up in the world and bought a nice house across town.
And I was gifted 20 years of crap my mum had saved that she thought was special - like art projects and drawings and crap from my childhood. It was a lot of crap.
And I didn’t have a room at all in my parent’s house any more.
And here I am 40 years later - a survivor - able to talk about it lol.

@IfOnlyTheyWent hi no we have no office space. My husband does not work from home, he works part time hours out of the house and looks after our youngest in the week. I work from home full time but I have no office space. The only space I have to work from is mine and my husband's bedroom. This is a fairly new job where I now work from home full time and I'm finding working from the bedroom unsustainable. There is not enough space in our bedroom for a proper office chair or desk so I'm experiencing pretty bad back pain and having a desk at the end of the bed just doesnt help with mental health. We were going to do a two storey extension with an additional bedroom and office but it doesn't look like we'll be able to afford it or be granted what we need in terms of space by planning anyway. I have therefore suggested we build a single storey permitted development at the back of the house which will be an office for me to use now, and that sd keeps her current bedroom for the next 4/5 years and then she loses it at that point and uses a day bed in the office when she stays as at that point the two younger kids, who are not the same gender, will be too old to share.

@steppemum yes I agree that would be great if workable but for our house the loft isn't boarded out and is already full of stuff (we can't throw away), our garage is in bad shape but contains a motorbike, all my husband's work crap, and I use it as well for a business I run in addition to my day job so it's the question of where would that all go if we converted the garage (which would cost similar if not more due to its condition). Our garden is not big enough for additional sheds, the only space we have is immediately out the back of the kitchen which is where we'd extend.

It sounds fine, as long as she has her own space at jer mum's house. She's got to have a base, and own space and storage somewhere.

I never said she shouldn't live/stay with her mother, or that her mother should throw her out. I said she shouldn't expect a DEDICATED bedroom when:

• she has another home elsewhere
• she is old enough to rent herself if she wanted (I know plenty of 18/19 year olds who live in shared houses with friends)
• there are other kids who are at home all the time, and are too young to chose to rent with friends or anything.

This all seems perfectly fair to me, OP. You could always promise her some storage space or similar to keep her old stuff in like a built in closet in the office that only gets opened when she stays over. But at 23 she should have somewhere else to live (or at least something to get her out of the house) - and if she's shown no interest in working and lacks direction, maybe this will give her the hint that she can't expect to just hang around forever. I get that these things are sensitive but it's not as though she wouldn't have a roof over her head.

I think your plan is reasonable, but at some point over the next year or so (maybe when she turns 20) you need to involve her in the conversation, if you haven't already done so.

"DSD, as you know we are very happy for you to be living here for as long as you want, but in a few years Sonny and Cher will be too old to share so we need to think about options. What are your thoughts?"

This whole thread is about 4 years time, maybe concentrate on now and the immediate future? SD could be living in Australia with a partner and child by then!

@Tumbler2121 thanks, as I've said we need to decide now whether or not to build a small office now, so yes though we're talking about things in the future in terms of room the decision we need to take is now not in 4 years time. Also the post is about whether it was unreasonable for me to suggest what I have done? My husband wants to either spend ridiculous money on an extension we can't afford or convert the garage which will leave us with no space

@stichguru
You're being ridiculous.
How many 19 years olds can afford to rent or buy their own home. There's a housing crisis which I'm sure you're aware of. Rentals are hard to come by and what 19 year old earns enough to cover rent and a deposit.

What's her set up at her mums? If she has her own room there and it's close by she probably won't need a bedroom for much longer anyway.

@Ibouncetothebeat hi yes her mum lives close and she has a room there, although they're in a similar position with small house, younger kids sharing etc and no money to move or build a large extension so I can't speak for her mum on whether that will change. I guess my question is in mid twenties is it expected that your kids would still have a permanent bedroom or is a place to sleep/stay that is not their own space ok ?

Why doesn't he like the idea of a extra room being built downstairs? It sounds like that would solve the problem?

Surely the issue of her having a separate bedroom is neither here nor there at the moment, the worst case scenario is that she would share with your daughter in a few years time?

As an option could you not partition the garage (for an extra bedroom) and still build an extra room or garden office downstairs?

@sandyhappypeople what I'm suggesting means shed have a bed in a room that would double as my office but it would not be her 'room', so I guess he feels like he's taking her personal space away and mid twenties would be too young to do that. Our garage is an out building with no heating, electricity, mice and a plastic roof covered in mould. It's not a simple partition job. She absolutely can share a room with her sister but I know she would refuse and my husband would not agree to that because of the age gap