Siblings sharing bedroom, 5 year age gap, boy/girl layout ideas

[hypnobell]

We’ve two children, DSS aged 5 and DD aged 6 months in a two bed flat. DP & I currently have the larger room, we have DSS about 10 nights a month and about 50% of the holidays. DD is in with us at the moment but we’d like to swap our bedrooms around for the DC to have the larger room when DD moves out of ours between 12-18 months(?)

We’ve no scope to move at the moment, we’d be looking to in 4-5 years. It also wouldn’t really be feasible for us to move into the living room as it’s a shared space with the kitchen and not a huge living space.

I know that siblings sharing rooms is frowned upon on Mumsnet but how could we configure these rooms to give DSS a little more privacy? The red window is short but wide window, blue window is narrow but floor to ceiling almost. The window on far right is a small bathroom style window as plans originally had an ensuite. Room size is 12’5” x 10’8”.

Thank you!

This is great, thank you :)

If you use furniture to create a partition, you need to be really sure it is attached to something so it can't fall on either child.

i suggest doing bunk beds and they can really make the walls in there bunk there own and reading lights and possibly a small bookshelf for the top. i shared like this with my younger brother until 12

My kids have chosen to share a room, we actually have space for them to have their own rooms but they have chosen to have our attic bedroom as a shared room! There’s a 4 year age gap they are both boys but they love it! I knew a few boy girl siblings who also love sharing a room!
We’ve split it using ikea kallax shelves (securely attached to the walls) to create 2 seperate rooms and actually painted the two sides different colours!

They 5 and a baby! of course they can share a room for a few years. The divide is only to give them (older one especially) a bit of privacy. I would even put my two in bunk beds if they were happy with it.
15 and 10yrs old, No. 5yrs and a baby, absolutely fine. Involve your DSS with the design so he gets the feeling that it's his own space.

Think I'd keep the baby in with parents for a little longer or until you move.

I have a large age gap between my children and when the youngest was born we lived in a two bedroomed house so had a similar issue. We ended up with the youngest sleeping in our room for 3.5 years until we moved.
If your step son is only with you 10 nights per month, I wouldn't think it would be too much of an issue sharing for the next few years.

This is the best idea for splitting the room. In a lot of older terraces you have to go through a bedroom to get to the third bedroom, I don’t think thats a problem. You could also think about dd staying in with you a little longer, unless she’s a rock solid sleeper it would be unfair for the little lad to be woken up by a toddler when he’s got school.