Childhood Bedrooms

Recently I have been employed to re-decorate two bedrooms in a semi-detached house in the suburbs of the city that I live in.

The job itself is relatively straight forward, but it was the background story that got me thinking and interested me. I will explain why.

Growing up I never had a bedroom long enough to call my own because we moved a lot. I’m sure that I’m not very typical because a lot of people live in the same family home throughout their childhood and their bedroom is of course their place of sanctuary. It also shows their character and personality in the way of decoration and pictures of their favourite movie and pop stars on the wall.

So when I was talking to my customer about the re-decoration of the two bedrooms the reason was the older child was going off to university and her younger child who was using the box room still had 5 years of schooling to go and it seemed logical, but also fair that he moved to the larger bedroom.

What my customer didn’t realise was the resistance and almost to the point of denial that her eldest would have to let go of her childhood bedroom. Her memories of childhood will be erased with a coat of paint and new curtains. Even though their mother was having the box bedroom re-decorated it didn’t seem to be enough for the older child.

All of this got me thinking about how as a child a lot of us live in the same house growing up and our bedroom is where we have all our nick-nacks, momentos from holidays, we have photos of special moments, certificates we may have gained in school, memories of friends, having sleep-overs and our views and attitudes have been formed to take us into adulthood. That is now all gone in one fell swoop and a tin of Dulux paint.

The larger bedroom colours were white emulsion on the ceiling, the feature wall was in First Dawn and the remaining walls in Goose Down, all in a Matt finish. The woodwork was white satinwood and the wardrobe doors in satinwood First Dawn. All the paint is Dulux

The smaller bedroom was painted in white emulsion on the ceilings and Natural Hessian on all the walls in a Matt finish. All the woodwork was painted in white satinwood and again all the paint is Dulux.

The new furniture in the smaller bedroom is flat packs from Ikea and certainly added that finishing touch. 

I was then speaking to another customer about this and she told me her children’s rooms were exactly the same as the day they left for university and she wasn’t going to change a thing until they gave the say so.

They are now in their early twenties and showing absolutely no intention of moving back home. This is of course the total opposite of the job that I’m doing. It made me wonder if the parent was holding on to the fact that they moved back home one day, unlikely I think.

I’m not sure which is right although I would tend to agree with the first scenario. Why leave a bedroom that could be utilised by another child that is going to be at home for some years.

Would love to know your experiences and what happened to your old bedroom once you left home.