In Change Happens Part I, I told you about the milestones that have been reached in this family and the changes it has prompted in the design of our home. As promised, I am now going to show you “The Cave”. But first a little background (in case you missed Part I)….
Our oldest son has been away at university for 2 years now and he is loving it. He is over 1000 miles from home and is only here 6 months out of the year MAX, but he still needs his room – after all, he IS my baby boy. When he IS home, he and his friends hang out A LOT. And most of them are pretty big guys – athletes – and those that aren’t are pretty darn “macho” (do we use that word still?).
4 things happened to make us change the design and function of this bedroom to a Flex Room:
- Last summer, a friend of his came over and hung out with us for a while. When I went to check on them, our son was sitting on 1 end of the bed and the friend on the other. That just didn’t “sit” right with me (or my son, I later found out). But there WAS only 1 other place to sit (other than the floor) and it did not have a good view of the (likely too large) TV.
I somewhat remedied this by changing the orientation of the bed and bringing in some seating options, but the result was still not to my liking nor was it more functional, design wise. - I realized that for the 6 months when he is NOT home, this room is underutilized. Sure it serves as a guest room (just like The Girly Girl room), but guess what….. We really don’t get too many overnight guests, if any. More often than not, the littlest played with his trains (and cars, and legos) in there; we fell asleep in there from time to time; but truly that’s about it. In my mind, that means it is wasted space and who wants to pay (that little thing called a mortgage) for space they don’t use? NOT ME.
- Even though we have 2 other areas for watching TV (we don’t do TVs in bedrooms), they are mainly designed for family viewing. In other words, they are each either on a Disney channel or whatever I like. 😉 And sometimes, the hubby and I like the same things… but what about when we don’t?
- Since we needed a new bed for The Girly Girl, I thought “hey why don’t we make this into a ‘Cave’ and use his bed in her room?”. (I refuse to call it a Man Cave because even though it’s intended for use by the hubby, the kid is still my baby boy and it still has to be his room.) DONE!
We had a purpose, we set a budget (because I couldn’t do this one for $0), and I got to work. THIS is the new room; we’re calling it simply “The Cave”:
I think I like it more than the man of the house does! And in case you’re wondering, our son says it is very comfortable to both sleep and lounge on. SUCCESS!
