So, we’ve been in this house for a year now and it wasn’t until we did this room combining project that I actually LIKED the kids room. I never really bothered with trying to make either of the kids ‘rooms “cute” or really decorate them for some reason. I think when I realized that their gorgeous Jenny Lind style twin beds took up 98% of the room all of my inspiration got packed up with the bed frames. I know it’s a little dramatic but I can finally say that I really like being in this house. Losing 1000 square feet really did a number on me I guess. Now, the kids shared big kid and toddler bedroom is maybe my favorite room in the house, but the school room/play room is a close second! I’ve linked as much as I could here and I’m also sharing some tips for transitioning your kiddos to one room!

Real quick, let’s chat decor. We did a lot of shopping around our own house to pull together the room. Since we were combining two rooms, it was easy to pull together and make some tweaks and add new additions. I think the biggest piece that kind of pulled the room together was the art print from Minted over their dresser. The colors were so great and totally match the vibe of the room. And I will say, one of the most game-changing things I did was switch out the knobs on the dresser and night stand. It was under $20 for enough knobs to cover both furniture pieces and totally changed the vibe they were before with the shiny chrome knobs. Totally matches the natural/earthy/boho feel much better! Another thing we did was get rid of most of the toys in the room. Luckily since the school room doubles as a sort of playroom we just moved most of it on over. They have a big basket of plush toys and a small basket of a few more. Then they each have the bookshelves at the end of their beds (big hit) and some more books on their nightstand. 

Now let’s talk “tips” about combining kids rooms. A lot of you asked, and I promised I’d do my best, and honestly I hope they’re helpful. They are incredibly vague but by golly they are the reason why I would give this whole transition an 8.5 out of 10 on the scale of “success”. 

If you’ve been around for a while you know that we don’t always have the most traditional sleeping arrangements for our kids. Elouise was in our room for 5 months in our tiny one bedroom apartment, then got upgraded to the walk in closet when we moved into a slightly bigger one bedroom condo. It wasn’t until we moved into our first house that she got her own room at almost 2 years old. Then Sully slept in our new walk in closet. He went to his own room eventually but when we were close to welcoming Teddy into our family we threw the two big kids together. Sully went from a crib to a twin bed at 22 months and they did amazing! Teddy followed suit and stayed in our walk in closet until he was about 11 months old and we moved to this new house. So, think I’ve just always had hope that anything can be figured out if we need it to work. 

Since we were starting homeschool and Teddy is the Tasmanian devil, I knew I needed a space to get some school work done without him pushing the dining room chairs around the kitchen trying to get things off the counter and get into trouble. So, we just went for it! It took a few nights for the “excitement” of being all together to wear off. Aka they kids talked for maybe 20-ish minutes until they all fell asleep. Teddy is the only one who naps during the day consistently so there wasn’t a big issue there. 

I think there are two big things that really made this a smooth transition. The first is the fact that we have always had really firm standards for bedtime. It’s just something that was important to Christian and me from the get go and we’ve worked hard to keep our nighttime for just us. Although, I have a feeling if anyone is going to break the streak it will be Teddy once he’s out of his crib. So I would say before you make such a big transition, make sure your kids know the bedtime boundaries pretty clearly. Whatever you want that to look like is up to you, but make sure they’re set before you make the move. The second thing is that was had to let go of our “perfect” picture of what we wanted this transition to look like. We are up a lot earlier than we used to be, by at least an hour. We were NOT happy about that. Before moving rooms around Teddy would wake up around 6 and fall back asleep in his own room until like 8:30. The big kids would wake up around 7ish and we’d let them play in their room for around an hour. Christian and I had time in the morning to sleep in, or relax, or do anything. So this new normal as not ideal in the very least. We have tried all sorts of different version of “wake up” time in the last month and a half and have finally landed on something we’ve made work for us. We try our best and “sneak” the big kids out of the room when they wake up and let Teddy stay in his crib another hour or so. Sometimes it just doesn’t work and we’re all up at 6:15, but I would say 9/10 times we have a smooth morning. A very early, not what we would pick if we could, morning, but we’ve kind of just decided to have a good attitude about it because trying to force or discipline a child to sleep doesn’t really ever work and just adds more stress to all parties involved. Moral of the story, nobody needs more stress right?

If you keep those two things in mind before and during your transition it will make things go MUCH smoother. And make sure you have a video monitor if you still have a little one (Teddy climbed out of his crib the first two days, crazy child) If you are worried about kids meandering out of the room, one of my favorite parenting hacks in the monkey door clip (find it here).