Miscommunication over room.....

[Songbird232018]

So we currently have a 3 bed house large room for us, large double for SD 14 and our DS (2) and a small room with bunk beds for SS 13 and SS 17 they stay EOW and some holidays but not half maybe 1/4.

Now at their mums the older boys have shared for years but 2 years ago they got a extension off the kitchen and each boy had there own room.. now last month they were told they had to share again as there are another couple for children in the house too and they decided the daughter needed her own room.

None of our business and we haven't really got involved other than listening to the boys moan a bit about having to share.

Now we have always planned on our home to do a loft conversion with a third floor proper stair case etc this will be done next September. Me and DP were discussing this and the boys have assumed they will be having separate rooms here.

I've said no because we want a guest room as family travels and stays regular but cannot stay with us currently because we don't have a double bed or space. I've said by all means their weekend one of them can use the room for gaming etc and even sleep up there but it will not be an official room for someone that they can decorate and use to Store stuff because I really want it to be guest room.

It's hard because it feels like most of our upstairs lies dormant for most of the month anyway (2 year old is still with us for the next few months before moving in with SD) and I don't want another room taken that I can't use for other purposes once claimed...

Does that seem unreasonable?

SD has the run of the room mostly and the plan is too early her into the smallest room alone and have my youngest DS and my son sharing a room when the eldest goes away to uni in 1.5 years or so.

I maybe wasn't clear with that, I think the youngest DS will want the loft room then all 3 kids at 'home' will have their own space and room which is what I feel is a waste. When the two boys can share the middle largest room.

Eldest at uni can use the loft at times he's back from uni but other than that it remains a spare room is my idea looking forward

Your youngest boy should have this room, he is at home full time, how exciting to be decorating him a big boy bedroom. Sd needs her own room also. I would not be prioritising guests just get a pull out bed and have a shuffle about when they come to stay

I think @Songbird232018 that you just have very different priorities to everyone else on this thread.

I cannot imagine seeing kids with a 11 year age gap sharing as a desirable choice when there is a spare room.

There is an 11 year gap between DS2 and DS3 here. There’s just no way it would reasonable to have (for example) a 15 year old sharing with a 4 year old unless there were no other choice.

I think the vast majority of us would consider the guest room ‘a waste’ if its existence was predicated on making a teenage girl share with a toddler and then making a teenage boy do the same thing.

it’s unlikely to be fun trying to get DH to even contemplate doing anything that doesn’t make the DSC the Most Important or which they might complain about. But I’ll just have to wait and see.

Good luck with that one - even though I think you’re totally justified

@Coffeepot72

it’s unlikely to be fun trying to get DH to even contemplate doing anything that doesn’t make the DSC the Most Important or which they might complain about. But I’ll just have to wait and see.

Good luck with that one - even though I think you’re totally justified

Well we all know what it can be like trying to get nonresident fathers to think rationally about things.

People who actually regularly live and stay should get priorities over an occasional guest. You can't have a guest room and a 14 year old girl sharing with a toddler boy! That's more of an issue than brothers who are close in age sharing.

So i would do it up for tour youngest daughter she resident child. The boys are not goin to mind if there sharing at home. You youngest is not goin to be young forver shel need he own space aswell

Won’t a guest room also be empty most of the time? You surely don’t have guests more often than you have your husband’s children?

So ‘wasted’ space either way.

I think it's a question of perception. You maybe see your husband's children as visitors, but it's their dad's home, and therefore theirs too. If there is space and money to be able to give them a room each, or for your son or his daughter to also have some space, I would see that as a priority.

Guest rooms are lovely to have, but more important that everyone feels at home, that it's their space. Nothing wrong with juggling people around to accommodate guests, and as someone said above - neutral colours is fine. If the only problem is that it 'looks like a boys bedroom' then I see that as way less important than them having a decent space. It's not wasted if it's for children who live there and are part of the family - regardless of how often they stay.

In fact the less they stay the more important it is, because they can very easily feel like they're not part of the family in these situations.

I don't think it's likely it would just be a couple of posters - lots of teenagers absolutely plaster their walls with them and also tend to keep their rooms in general squalor.

Surely it's for the OP to set limits on numbers of posters allowed and to set standards for cleanliness and tidiness, for all the DC not just those using the 'guest room'.

What is your DP's opinion?
Exactly that, why haven't you mentioned your oh? Who will be financing the extension and who will be the guests?

Because if he is financing it fully himself and the guests are your family or friends, I'd be really annoyed if I were him.

Because if he is financing it fully himself and the guests are your family or friends, I'd be really annoyed if I were him.

Why would you assume this?

I'd personally think the priority would be to give as many of the children their own room as possible. But do so on the understanding that if you're having guests, they MUST clean up whichever room the guests will stay in before they go back to their other parent's house.

Whenever we have guests, they're happy to sleep in DSS's room as he goes to his mum's for the weekends, your house isn't a hotel, you don't need a dedicated room 'for guests' when your children are left sharing.

It's so important for children - more so the older they get - to have space that they can call their own, and retreat to whenever they need to. Keeping a room empty for the sake of things seems nonsensical to me, and they should absolutely be able to decorate the room, too. It's fine to have neutral decor but posters etc are all a part of growing up!

you maybe see your husband’s children as visitors

But if someone only stays at your house a few nights per fortnight, then isn’t that what they are? In any other context the word ‘visitor’ would be fine, but in anything step related it seems taboo to point out the obvious, that the children in question have a ‘main’ home and then visit the other?

@Coffeepot72

you maybe see your husband’s children as visitors

But if someone only stays at your house a few nights per fortnight, then isn’t that what they are? In any other context the word ‘visitor’ would be fine, but in anything step related it seems taboo to point out the obvious, that the children in question have a ‘main’ home and then visit the other?

I agree.

No. The point is that they shouldn't be made to feel like visitors. They are at their dad's house. That's their home. If they feel like visitors something has gone wrong.

We both work full time and earn roughly the same about £60 a year together so we are both paying for the extension.
He sees both sides really, I guess we will revisit it next year once it's done feeling maybe different then once it's a real situation but I am now heavily contemplating letting my SD use the room for herself and leave the boys staring the single room and my DS in the large double

Children staying with one of their parents are not visitors and cannot be compared with extended family or friends, that would be classed as visitors.

Being seen as a visitor within your nuclear family, is a sure way to make a child feel unwanted.

@Songbird232018

We both work full time and earn roughly the same about £60 a year together so we are both paying for the extension. He sees both sides really, I guess we will revisit it next year once it's done feeling maybe different then once it's a real situation but I am now heavily contemplating letting my SD use the room for herself and leave the boys staring the single room and my DS in the large double

It would make more sense for the youngest to have the single and the boys share the double. Then in another few years once older DS probably doesn't need a room, your younger SS can have the single and your DS have the double.

There’s nothing wrong with having a guest room if you’ve got sufficient rooms in the house for everyone to have a separate bedroom (assuming that’s what they want). You don’t have enough rooms for this, so yes, I think this idea is selfish. We can’t all have guest rooms, just as we can’t all have dressing rooms or cinema rooms or wet rooms or anything else sold to us by lifestyle magazines. I feel sorry for these poor boys. You’re sending out a strong message about how much you value them - they appear to be less important than impressing an occasional visitor.

True friends don’t care about posters on the wall: so why try to impress? It’s a bit shallow.

Sorry what? I reckon your steps kids would be really upset about this. I imagine the chat in years to come "my step mum wouldn't allow us on own room in our dad's house. She decided it should be a guest room instead"
I think your priority should be to give the residents of the house the bedrooms.