I’m LOL’ing at the mention of “trophies” - D1 was home this weekend and found one of her old dance trophies in the attic and took it home and was going to secretly place it on her boyfriend’s mantel and see how long it takes him to realize there is a pink dance trophy in his midst.
We def left rooms cleaned up but intact through college. Once they moved elsewhere we did ask for them to go through drawers and closets and things and we were happy to put mementos in the attic. Eventually all rooms got repainted but still function as bedrooms for when they visit and one is a bedroom/my office for WFH.
D2 a grad student has been home since December doing a clinical rotation - we actually gave her room a refresh not only for her enjoyment but so the room is fresh and ready if/when we move forward with a possible house sale. She’ll be leaving the end of this month and I have to say, her room is the most pleasant of all 4 bedrooms! We just painted, revamped her desk to make it more adult appropriate, bought new bedding, rug and side chair and ottoman. But it is still her room when she comes to visit!
Timely thread. My oldest graduated from college last year and has permanently moved out, barring major life disruptions. But she is in a small apartment and doesn’t really have room to take much. She has lots of old trophies, medals, ribbons, etc from gymnastics. Also a guitar and violin that seemed to have been abandoned once she made the move to viola. There is still a lot of stuff here. I have been using her room and desk as my wfh office so I’ve been gradually moving stuff out of the way and tossing old stuff I know she will never use again. But there is still an awful lot.
Inspired by this thread I just took down the 13 year old middle school awards from her wall. My daughter has an electric piano. When I gave it to her for her birthday when she was little I told her it is hers to take with her when she has a place for it in a home of her own. She hasn’t played at all since she left high school and stopped lessons. I am still hoping she will take it with her one day when she has room for it. Nobody else plays, my husband will very occasionally play around with it (but he really prefers his ukulele.)
We live in a 3 bedroom house and had 3 kids, so our boys grew up sharing a room. When D1 went away to college we moved S1 into her room. For the next 8 years we played musical chairs with the rooms. The older two lived with us for a year each while they got their masters, and the third lived with us for 4 months after he graduated. They are all officially gone now so both rooms are guest rooms. One has a crib in it for when the grandbaby visits and the other has a Peloton.
When each kid went off to college all the trophies etc… went in a box which went into the garage.
I love that ad where the kid comes home from college and his parents have usurped his room to expand their kitchen and he now basically has a closet with a bed in it. My husband didn’t like the ad but I thought it was hilarious.
A friend of mine and his siblings just sold their family home. His Mom had kept the rooms unchanged since my friend and his siblings moved out. My friend is 70 years old.
My kids rooms are a mix. One still has a closet and dresser full of clothes. The room looks similar to when she lived here. Another has the decor including ribbons and metals from her sport but the closet has been cleared out. The third room has been totally transformed into a guest room but the closet still has some of his stuff. At some point I’m going to have them all go through their stuff.
Since I’m leaving my family next year even if I don’t get accepted to BS, my parents told me that they would make my room my sisters room. My awards would be displayed in the living room area. But other than that change, I’m pretty sure my desks, piano, and reading chair are going to stay in the same place.
It’s hard to believe that my 8th grade year is going to be the last time I live with my parents full-time. I mean I don’t know what will happen in the future, but I plan on attending college after high school and probably getting a job and living in my own after that.
Transformed one of the kids rooms into a guest room and the other into a home office just in time for the pandemic to hit. No guests, but at least I have a comfy work space. And piles of boxes in the basement for them to sort through at some point.
I agree about the ease of getting rid of things when kids are closer by. We are now on opposite coasts. I don’t mind the two tubs so much, but I think I am going to have that accordion and sound mix board for a loooong time. They are both tucked away. I did ask ds about them when he was here for his extended stay over the holidays. He would really like me to keep them. They are both tucked away, and we do have space for them, but I wish they were out.
Whether you keep their rooms as they are or not, I really do believe that the purging of your own belongings, memorabilia is a huge gift to give to your children. I would never want to ds to have to go through, sort, and get rid of a bunch of our “stuff.” He will have to pitch our clothing and my sheet music but should only have to go through a couple of tubs of “stuff,” and well-organized photos when we pass. I hope to keep it that way. For their own belongings, it’s just a matter of when that happens and whether or not you want that timing to be theirs or yours.
We are dealing with some of this now. Both kid’s rooms were redecorated after they graduated from college (neither lived at home after that). We mostly neutralized/updated paint colors/window treatments/bed linens. D has taken some of the stuff she wants and we are taking more to her soon. S still has stuff that he needs to go through.
We are planning to relocate to another state in 2022, so it will all be dealt with soon.
S has 2 of the oversized totes full of trophies. He has pulled out a few of the national level ones that are in his room. He has given me permission to do whatever I want to with the rest. My flip answer to that question when I’m asked what I plan on doing with the rest of them is pissing off his wife when I bring them to his house someday.
This is what I would actually love to do. Son went to a low budget tournament when he was in elementary school where there was a wide assortment of trophies, soccer, stock car racing, bowling, wrestling and everything else. When you won your bracket, you could pick a trophy. Especially the younger kids really got into it and it was fun for the adults to watch them choose too.
I have a lot of time now that I’m retired and stuck home due to covid. So I started attacking the kids rooms (after 10 years of procrastination). We’ve been going through old papers, notebooks etc. Trying to get rid of a lot and sort the rest into logical boxes. Gotta do it because I now have an overload of other sentimental stuff in the house after clearing out my mother’s apartment last year.
Our kids sorted through their own rooms over summer or after graduation as they chose. They took what they wanted, donated what they didn’t want, and boxed up things they want to save at our place. Some things are still in their rooms, but I don’t mind. They still work well enough as guest rooms when folks come to visit, esp since most who come to visit (and stay) are friends of theirs.
Someday they still need to go through the attic.
When we were cleaning out my mom’s place after she died I came across 5 drawers and one box of my stuff. That sure brought back memories. I kept a little bit of it, tossed most, and sold some at her estate sale - probably for quite a bargain for whoever got it because the toys were old by then.
I’m happy enough to let my kids have their reminiscing moments when they come home if they chose to save things.
Before it was her room, my daughter’s room was our guest bedroom (same bed and dresser). I think in all those years we had maybe one overnight guest use the room. We have a pullout sofa in our family room and I think that has been used for a guest maybe 2-3 times. The only overnight guest we ever have is my daughter - so she might as well be comfortable with some of her stuff around her.
I anticipate when we downsize that our only overnight guest will still be my daughter (maybe going into the future - she would visit with her family?)
Trophies: My 3 kids had boxes from every season of youth soccer, baseball, swimming, diving, softball…
Luckily, we were asked to donate the swimming ones to a group that was conducting a ‘special olympics’ type event. Like Thumper, I took off the brass name plates and off they went.
The rest, unfortunately, are landfilling.
My D20 left behind a much more spacious bedroom than her younger sister had been inhabiting all of her life. So, it was a no brainer that D24 was going to move into the bigger room as soon as D20 left for school. As there’s not room for lots of her stuff in her new (smaller) room, I packed up a camp trunk full of the childhood mementos to store in the basement. I left a bulletin board with photos on the wall, and her photo albums on the desk, but everything else got packed away.
Her new room is pretty much a blank canvas. I’m sure once she’s home for the summer she’ll make it feel like hers, but it won’t be a big trip down memory lane for her.
I like my daughter’s room and I like the memories her things hold. She’s my only, we’re very close, and life will change drastically when she goes away this fall.
It’s going to be a shock, especially as the pandemic has weakened my ties to many people locally. The people I grew most close to In this town over the years have moved away anyway. My main job now is not letting her see how much I will miss her. I’ll have to figure out what comes next when the time comes. Hopefully the world will have opened up enough by then to search for a compelling new chapter In life, but that will take time to discover.
So I feel quite sure I’m not going to feel an urge to clear her stuff out anytime soon. I’ll probably be a guilty of enshrining it a bit. Sentimental homebody that she is, she’ll probably like coming back to her intact room during holidays for awhile. It’s OK. I’ll enjoy sitting there among the teddy bears with the morning sun shining through the windows.
My parents never wanted me to go through my stuff and clear out my room when I was still bouncing around between grad student digs, their house and my boyfriend’s place, nor later when we were starting our family in a very small house - a cottage, really.
Now we’ve got the space and they feel the need to downsize, but while the kids were little I just didn’t have the energy, and now there’s a pandemic on and I can’t visit. (Not that I feel that I have that much more energy…).
The morale of the story: if you want your kids to do it with or for you, make them do it before they have kids themselves!
I downsized when my DD graduated from high school. She helped sort through things. We donated a lot, sold some, and created a couple of memories boxes for her for when she has her own house. The guest room in our new house is her room when she is home. She helped decorate it. It is a very adult room plus the stuffed animals she kept. Once she is fully launched, she’ll take the last remaining personal items and it will be only a guest room.
