Upstairs playroom?

[Bancha]

Looking for a bit of advice.

We live in an old house and have four bedrooms upstairs. Because it’s old, two of the rooms are huge and two are fairly small. DC2 is en route and I need to move DC1 out of the bedroom next to our room, and into another bedroom. I had always assumed that DC1 would go into the big bedroom and we’d keep the small room at the back as a small spare bedroom (we have another, nicer spare room with a bathroom in the basement).

However, recently I’ve been thinking that feels unfair on DC2. I realise it won’t make a difference for some time to come, but it just hasn’t been sitting right with me. I’m also not keen on toys in bedrooms if I can help it, and feel like DC1 (just turned 2) would get a bit lost in such a big room.

So I was thinking of an upstairs playroom for the DC to share as they get older. We’ve been shuffling furniture around and I’ve been on a decluttering rampage nesting so it’s currently quite empty and DC1 loves running about in there at the moment.

The question is, do upstairs playrooms work? I’m not sure I’d want arts and crafts up there, so we’d keep that in the big family space downstairs. Would the aim be to keep all toys in the playroom to keep the downstairs of the house ‘nice’, or have some toys upstairs and some toys downstairs? At the moment, the toys downstairs aren’t quite at the stage of taking over the house, but then I haven’t got all the baby kit out yet. It might be good to have space to store some things upstairs and out of the way.

I’m not expecting DC to play alone for a good few years yet, so maybe it’s all academic and I shouldn’t even bother?

I plan to have a sofa bed or a day bed in there as well for secondary spare room use as well as reading, playing, and even the dreaded sleepovers as DC get older. But that’s really as far as I’ve got with working out what to do with the room.

Any advice/thoughts/opinions all welcome. Thank you

We have one, as dc wanted to share a room. It works well for us. When they were younger it housed all the larger toys, dolls house, dolls pram's etc. we have a tub chair in there that we would often sit together in and read. I found it handy they had somewhere safe to play whilst I was showering or cleaning upstairs. Now they are a bit bigger the larger toys have gone, and since Covid I have been working from home some days, so we now have a desk in there. Eldest dd uses the desk now for her homework and as a quiet space to read. Youngest dd has a little table and all her Lego set up in there.

I much prefer a downstairs play room. My dc are a few years older older yours, but its so much more convenient to allow them to play downstairs whilst I get on with things within ear shot. No dangerous running up and down the stairs for dc.
When they have friends over I can limit them to the playroom ensuring they aren't upstairs rummaging/ sneaking into my room etc.
When they are older and the playroom gives way to a teenagers lounge or whatever I'd much prefer them downstairs where I can keep a loose eye on what's going on.

We have an upstairs playroom with a sofa bed. DS is 4 and it was handy when he was a baby to have a space that I knew was always baby proof ( no cups left out etc). Now he is older all the things like train tracks, toy kitchen, blocks are in there and play dough and art stuff downstairs

We have a double bedroom that is used as a playroom since our children were toddlers. They have smaller rooms for their bedrooms but all toys, the family computer and sofa bed are in the playroom (which now doubles up as guest room and study). Works very well for us as we didn’t have space downstairs for a separate playroom.

We converted our lift into a playroom. The kids never used it, they wanted to be in the same level as us so just dragged everything back down the stairs. Might have worked on the first floor.

Loft!

I think it'll be a good few years before the playroom becomes practically useful - you'd have to be in there with the toddler when they are playing, you could just shut the door and get on with whatever, or send them off up the stairs. I think you have to live with toys etc in several areas for a bit so that yes have toys upstairs, but it's for when you are upstairs as well. So not a playroom as such. In our situation an upstairs playroom would have been too isolated. And even when older and able to play independently it might be a case of out of sight out of mind and mayhem could be taking place and if you were downstairs you'd never know.

We have a basement playroom (we live abroad where walkout basements are the norm) and the DC absolutely refuse to play in it they are 4 and 6 and hate being on a different floor from us, so like the pp, they just drag all their toys onto the main floor and play there. The playroom is basically just toy storage. It might work for some families or older children, but sadly it's not for us!

My friend did it, the children shared a bedroom which they loved doing, very close sisters and the other bedroom was their playroom. She had a camera installed for the playroom so she could see and hear them whilst she was downstairs cooking in the kitchen. The monitor bit was portable so she could move it through the house with her.

My children's playroom/den is downstairs but it is lovely that their bedrooms are just for sleeping in, a place to wind down and relax and nothing tempting to secretly get out of bed for.

@itwasntaparty

We converted our lift into a playroom. The kids never used it, they wanted to be in the same level as us so just dragged everything back down the stairs. Might have worked on the first floor.

@itwasntaparty I was thinking you were posh having a lift but also a bit strange using it as a playroom

My two have a playroom downstairs in the conservatory and toys still get dragged into the living room to play with. They don’t like being separate even though it’s literally a glass door that I can sit in the living room and see them through. So a playroom on a different floor wouldn’t work for us.

It would work very well when they are 10 and above I think but not before. Is there any space on the ground floor?

Some really helpful replies here, thanks everyone.

I’m not really expecting any independent play any time soon. I definitely remember playing upstairs by myself when I was middle primary school aged which I suppose is what I imagine for my two. At the moment on our at home days we quite often go in there after her nap and she runs around and plays with the tiny amount of stuff we’ve got in there. I was thinking along the lines of an extension of this. As they get older I liked the idea of them being able to leave things they’ve built or set up out without me needing to tidy it away.

Or maybe this is just impractical and we will just end up ‘wasting’ a room? We don’t have room for a playroom downstairs so it’s not an option for us, otherwise that’s what we’d do. We do have toys downstairs in the big kitchen dining family room, which works really well for now. But I can see it getting more and more cluttered as they get more toys and that being unpleasant for all of us.

@tealandteal @Mummydoctor @LouLou198 did the upstairs playrooms get used for playing? Or was it just effectively toy storage?

We have moved around bedrooms a fair bit over the years.
DS1 started in the small bedroom with DS2 cot in large one.
We eventually got them bunk beds in the small room and called the double a playroom (also our spare room for guests).
When they were small they mostly played downstairs though.
When DS1 was 7 he decided he wanted his own room and moved into the double.
We have since built an extension and DS2 also has a double bedroom.
I think when they are small they really don't mind, and indeed loved sharing a small bedroom.
However as teens equity is really important. Also there bedrooms are much more important to them.
I think the double is good as a shared play space in the short term, could be a gaming /homework room when they are older.

I like having a play space upstairs and downstairs. My LO is only 11 months so a long way off playing on his own, but it’s nice to have options of where to play. Plus he seems to get bored of toys less when they’re not always in eyesight.

@Bancha yes they have played in the room a lot, and youngest still does as all Lego set up in there on a little table. It's evolved as they have got order. I can see it turning into more of a study when they get older. When they were smaller I used to sit in there and play with them. We used to have a small ball pool in there! It's to have somewhere they can get things out and then shut the door on it at the end of the day! Sometimes I use it as somewhere quiet to read in an evening too.

How old is DC1?

I think you might end up wanting separate bedrooms by the time your DC get to the age they would use a playroom. My DS share a room. DS1 is now at the age where he wants to play by himself without having his younger brother there. The problem we have is the box room is now used as my office. When we got the house, we planned on using it as a bedroom when they were ready for their own room or as a play room for one to be alone. Our downstairs is open plan which doesn't help. So in short, we need a new house in a couple of years when theyre teens.

Or I need to go back into the office.

What would you use the room for if it wasn't a playroom? A guest room is more of a waste than an infrequently used playroom.

If you don't have another use for it, even just having it as toy storage will be a huge benefit so the living areas are clutter free and calm. The best part of having a playroom is being able to leave giant Brio railway networks or a cardboard box fort out for weeks on end. Personally, I would just write off the carpet, or take it up, store it and replace it with cheap vinyl and a rug, or put down a vinyl mat/the sticky carpet protector that builders use in part of the room for arts and crafts. What have you got to lose if you find you aren't using it or have a better use for the room in the future apart from a wrecked carpet possibly? It's also good for sleep hygiene to have a bedroom without toys that is just for sleeping rather than playing.

It will effectively be a big cupboard but if you think that will be useful then why not?

We used to have an upstairs playroom. It was carpeted so arts/crafts/painting was downstairs. I think it worked quite well, and had a cosy reading area with floor cushions and beanbags, but ultimately, after a house move, we moved the playroom downstairs.

I would just give eldest the larger room for now, and can always swap to using as playroom/ second living room in future when they are school age or older.

Ds (almost 2), has fairly big room. It’s doesn’t feel too big. We keep some toys and bits in there but only ‘quiet, clean’ type ie puzzles, books, building blocks, teddies. Nice comfy big chair. It’s a nice space we use for quiet play when we want a change of scenery from downstairs ( especially if it’s been raining).

You can always use the bedroom as general toy storage to help downstairs. You can store things up high so they can’t reach and mess around with at bedtime, and just leave a few things at their height.
Then rotate things around from downstairs up.
I keep most children books in the bedroom, just bring down about 10 to living room, and then swap every few weeks.

@chesirecat99

Yes if we didn’t use it as a playroom it would be another spare room, which feels a bit pointless. I like the idea of being able to leave things out that they’re working on as well, which I wouldn’t want to do downstairs in the family space.

Until about year 8, DS always wants to be close to wherever I was. He barely spent any time in his bedroom, so a playroom on another floor wouldn’t have been used. Our playroom is on the ground floor (we don’t have open plan) and if I was in the kitchen, for example, he would always just come and find me and set up whatever he wanted to do wherever I was. But if I was physically in the playroom with him, he’d happily stay there. So the location for us would have been crucial to whether it was used at all.

If you don't have another better use for the room, I would give it a go @Bancha. Another advantage of having a playroom is that you can have big toys that you wouldn't want out permanently in the rest of the house. We had an indoor toddler play house with a slide when the DC were tiny and a kitchen/house area for role play games when they were older.