Childrens' Bedrooms - How it Works for Us

Currently we live in a 1300 sq ft, 4 bedroom, 2 bath rambler. The master suite is occupied by us, one bedroom is our school/sewing/craft/reading room, and the other two rooms are the childrens' bedrooms, one for girls, and one for boys.

The girls' room is 11'x12'. It holds one twin bed, a set of twin bunk-beds, a roll-out twin-size trundle under the bunk-beds, and a 5' white dresser.

The dresser is a relatively new addition to the room, a hand-me-down from my parents. Each of the older three girls has one small drawer and one large drawer to store all of their folded clothing, and our baby girl has one large drawer. Before we had the dresser, the girls stored their clothes in the closet in wire basket drawers from Ikea.

Their closet has one shelf which holds 10 file boxes. These boxes are "memory" boxes and contain memorabilia for me, my husband, and each of the girls. Five boxes on the floor in the corner of the closet, contain off-season, or off-size girls' clothing. The basket drawers are still in the closet, but now contain extra linens, cloth diapers, and several drawers are actually empty. The girls' dresses are hung in the closet.

*We have taken the doors off the closets in both rooms because they were sliding doors and the kids kept knocking them off the rails. 

The boys' room is smaller, 9.5'x11'. In it, we have two twin beds, which can be bunked when the boys get a bit older, a small nightstand (that actually matches the dresser in the girls' room), and a wooden toy chest that holds all the stuffed animals in the house. The nightstand is completely empty, and mainly serves as a shelf for the boys to put their water bottles.

The boys' closet is smaller, and the shelf only holds 6 file boxes, plus a couple of photo boxes. The photo boxes are mine, 2 of the file boxes are memorabilia for the boys and the other 4 are off-season and off-size boys' clothing. The lower 4 basket drawers in the closet hold the boys' folded clothes (2 each). The upper drawers are half empty, but hold a couple guest blankets. The lowered clothing rod holds the boys Sunday clothes where they can reach them.

In general, toys do not belong in bedrooms. The stuffed animals are the only exception to that rule. Occasionally, toys are allowed to be played with in the bedrooms, but they are never stored there.