Bedrooms and how to split them

[AliceAnneB]

My DH and I have one DS (3) and two from his previous marriage DSD (8) and DSS (11). Currently DS has the smallest bedroom and the older two share s decent size bedroom with a fun bunk bed (slide/climbing rope/hammock). We have a guest bedroom/office as well. Keeping a guest room is fairly important because my family all live in the US and come to stay for weeks at a time multiple times a year. My DH and I also work from home a fair bit and there is no where else to have a desk/printer etc. We have the older two every other weekends and some holidays. As DSS gets closer to puberty we are been thinking about renovating the loft which is adjacent to the big kids current room. The idea was to knock the wall down between the loft and the kids current bedroom to make one big room. We were thinking of giving DSS a high up loft bed built in type thing of his own. We could make the loft into his room but it's a very strange shape 6 feet by 23 feet hence the idea of just adding that space onto the current bedroom. So would you put DS and DSD together as both will still be youngerish? It doesn't seem to make sense to put DSS and DS together because they have 8 years between them? Any ideas?

I suppose that it depends on how far into the future you are thinking. As they get older they probably won't want to share a room as much as they do now. As DSS is older he may feel that he would like his own space (if this is possible in your property).

For example would it be possible to have the guest/office space in the loft area and then move one of the children into the existing guest/office bedroom? Or is the loft space not a good shape for this? Is there a separate access that wouldn't require guests/you to go through DSD's bedroom when she is there?

My DS is 10 and my DSD is 12. There is no way that they would want to share a room with each other. I appreciate that they are not brother and sister in the way that your step children are but they do get on well. However DSD in particular is growing up fast and she needs and wants her own space. However we are lucky in the sense that we can provide that room for her, without compromising anyone else.

I know that your step children may seem quite young at the moment but I would suspect that in another twelve months they may have changed hugely and you might find that any changes that you make now will not work in another year/eighteen months from now.

Thanks for the reply workofsatan. You will have to walk through the current kids bedroom to get to the loft space so couldn't really be office/guest room.

I'm an only child so I'm feeling fairly at sea over what's best to do. I made a huge effort to make sure that when we bought the house the step kids room was done first so they felt welcome. I want them to continue to feel like this is their home too even though they aren't here much but we have a space issue which means someone is going to have to share. If I put DSS up in a lofted bed (it's the top of the house so would have huge ceilings) and a cool ladder would that be separate enough do you think? If two need to share which two would you pick?

I love where we live in London and really don't want to move but if ever one of the step kids wanted to live with us during the week the. I would to ensure everyone got their own room. But DH moved out of London with his ex and he really hated it and the brief time I lived out of London I wasn't a big fan either so would prefer not to.

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Could the loft be used as an office?

I would subdivide the loft room somehow, and have it so that DSD gets her own space up there but has to walk through DS's room to get to it. DS won't care about privacy, but DSD might soon.

Also don't know what your loft room is like, but ours isn't great for tall people and I'm guessing DSS is likely to end up taller that DSD.

That's if your DS would be OK on a different floor of the house from you. My DD moved to the loft room at 8 and found it hard being so far away from me at night. Took her ages to settle. 3 might be a little young.

Otherwise, you could just leave the DSC in the loft room, but extend and divide it somehow to give them a bit of privacy.