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We have a spare room and I would like to use that room as a playroom for my two boys. My husband thinks we should use the spare room as a guest room. He doesn't feel the boys need to occupy an extra room and I don't feel like we should have a room for the use of an occasional guest (family comes every 6 months or so). I'm thinking I should just put a daybed in the room I want to use as a playroom and that will be the happy medium. However, we already have a Queen size bed room suite that we won't be using and I know what he's going to say next. "Why buy a daybed when we have a bedroom set already?". Part of me thinks he's right (I can't believe I'm typing this) and the other part of me thinks my boys have enough of toys to put good use of that room. I just don't think we should have a room set aside for guest that may come to visit when my boys can be using that room on daily basis. We didn't buy the house for guest, we bought it for our family.
If the husband wins, has anyone combined a playroom with a bedroom and if so, how did you go about designing it? I have two little men so they will have twin toddler beds or bunk beds. The room isn't extremly large but it's bigger than your average size secondary bedrooms.
Personally, I like having a spare bedroom so when guests do come it is furnished and nice. (and if one of us is sick the other can sleep in there)
I have toddler twins, BUT we also have a formal living room empty that we use as a playroom AND a finished basement in which they occupy half of with their toys and such...if mine didn't have that space, I would probably put a day bed in the spare room and let them have it as a play room...then when guests come I would clear out their toys to a different location and let my guests enjoy some space.
As for the queen furniture...I agree that is would be a waste of money NOT to use it, but you have to do what is best for you. (If you are a stay at home mom and your husband works, it is YOU that has to deal with the kids and the messes each day, so I would say it is you who gets to decide what to do with that room.)
My son's bedroom is too small to contain a TV so we have put our old entertainment center with a TV in the spare/guest room so he can play his Wii and other games in there. Like you, we had a full headboard & footboard, but did not want to put a permanent bed on there since our guests are pretty much few and far in between. We have purchased a king size inflatable mattress (the bed height one) and have found this very useful. Our guests are "big" people who would find it tight to sleep in a full or even a queen. We kept the furnishings in the room minimal (prints on the wall and a small side table with a lamp) and have found that in the year we were in the house, the extra space was more used as game room rather than as guest room. I guess in your case, you have to determine the frequency of your guests visit and figure out whether this type of arrangement will suit your circumstances.
Plan A: Depending on the design of the queen-sized bedroom suite, could you reuse the pieces in a playroom kind of way? Could the bed become an oversized daybed, placed sideways against a wall and loaded with pillows? Could the bureau hold small toys and games and paper and crayons? Perhaps when guests come the bed could be repositioned with the headboard agains the wall and the coverlet exchanged from a kid-friendly to a guest-friendly.
Plan B: will your two little men be sharing a bedroom? If so, and if you haven't purchased bed sets for them, there are a number of neat things out there that combine bunk beds with desks and cubbies all in one. OR if they will have separate bedrooms, you could make one of the rooms the sleeping room for both and the other a playroom.
To arrange a bedroom/playroom combo, you could place the beds along the walls in an L shape with a table (cube) at the "heel" of the L for a lamp and a landing spot for other things. That would give you the maximum open floor space for play.
We had a similar delima, and my hubby felt the same as yours. We came to kind of a "compromise" and he was happy in the end. I dont know how old your kids are but it should work.
We got a fairly nice couchbed (mde sure it was a really compfy one). Made the room into an "activity room" instead of "play room". There was a "media area" with tv,play station, radio, dvd, etc. also an area for arts and crafts. We put a cover over the couch so we wouldnt fuss over it and one of those plastic things under the arts and crafts area so we wouldnt freak over any mess on the carpet. They were not allowd to bring 5 million toys into the room. It was for specific activities or sleep overs. I would also allow them to have food in there ( they didnt have tv or food in their bedrooms). So, it was kind of a playroom but never a huge mess. when guest came I would take the cover off clean up the room and it was still a fairly decent "guest bedroom".
I am a firm believer in not heating, cooling, and cleaning a room that is not in use on a regular basis. I understand the dilema with not getting rid of furniture you already have but if you sell it you might be able to furnish this room with the money you get.
Ask yourself, how often or how many times a year are you likely to have a guest who needs a guest room?
Then weigh that against how many times a year your children will use a playroom? I think the answer for the kids is going to be daily.
I personaly would put a daybed in there, a guest can sleep on it still, if someone is sick one of you or the kids can sleep in there but your kids will get the daily use of a playroom. Or you could put a sleeper sofa in there as well if you want more room. I think I would be more likely to get an aerobed and depend on that if you think your going to have so many guests.
My daughter had one for the longest time, she even had her own TV, Directv Tuner, DVD player and her own recliner, play table, that place was her playground.
Now that she is older, its a guest room AND a video game room, there is a twin bed in there and all my video game systems and collectibles. The most we have ever used it as a guest room is about two weeks out of the year. We use it daily to go in and play video games. We have a TV dedicated to it so no one has to wait until someone else is done watching TV. I'm thinking of getting rid of the twin bed in there and getting one of those oversized chairs that folds out into a twin size bed. It would be more useful as a playroom but still have a place for someone to sleep.
My son was a lego-maniac, and I gave him the spare bedroom as a playroom so that he could build cities and railroads, etc, and I didn't have to contend with toys all over the house. Consequently, I had all of his friends over all the time, but I preferred it that way because I always knew what he was doing.
I have to admit that I also had a guest room, so I wasn't in your position of having to choose one or the other, but if I only had one spare room I would have made it the playroom because that got used 365 days a year, and the guestroom got used about 6 days a year.
Ask yourself, how often or how many times a year are you likely to have a guest who needs a guest room?
Then weigh that against how many times a year your children will use a playroom? I think the answer for the kids is going to be daily.
I personaly would put a daybed in there, a guest can sleep on it still, if someone is sick one of you or the kids can sleep in there but your kids will get the daily use of a playroom. Or you could put a sleeper sofa in there as well if you want more room. I think I would be more likely to get an aerobed and depend on that if you think your going to have so many guests.
My daughter had one for the longest time, she even had her own TV, Directv Tuner, DVD player and her own recliner, play table, that place was her playground.
Now that she is older, its a guest room AND a video game room, there is a twin bed in there and all my video game systems and collectibles. The most we have ever used it as a guest room is about two weeks out of the year. We use it daily to go in and play video games. We have a TV dedicated to it so no one has to wait until someone else is done watching TV. I'm thinking of getting rid of the twin bed in there and getting one of those oversized chairs that folds out into a twin size bed. It would be more useful as a playroom but still have a place for someone to sleep.
I"ll have to agree here...your kids will get more use our of that room and you will have toys in that room only rather than in your living room, etc. Guests only come a few times a year, during their stay, move out toys into your living room and let guests have the room.
If you stay at home w/the kids you will see more benefit out of the playroom than your hubby. He does not have to really deal with the clutter out in the open all day long, it does get tiring. TO have them contained has been the best thing we ever did.
Ok,
I just wanted to make sure I wasn't be unreasonable. As I tried to explain to my husband, we didn't buy our house for guest, we bought it for our family! My boys have so many toys and I want them to be able to play with them freely. I think we will try to sale the Queen bedroom set and buy a daybed. It will still serve as a guest room but more importantly, my boys can have somewhere to play. I'm not a stay-at-home mom but my boys can tear up a house in a matter of seconds. Right now I'm looking at cars, balls, crayons, etc. Let me go clean up!
Is it possible to maybe sell the bedroom set you have on CL, but keep one nightstand and then use the $$ to buy a futon on CL? Have a plan that when family comes the room has to be "boxed up" to accomodate your guests (Keep some large plastic bins in the closet so everything can be quickly scooped up - just don't buy clear ones that will let everyone see the mess inside). You can find slipcovers for futons so that if you or your husband need to sleep there and you're too tired to sort what they've piled on it, you can just pull off the slipcover and then quickly pull down the futon.
You can store the bedding, pillows and decorative pillows for the futon and maybe an alarm clock and some hangers in the plastic bins while the room is being used as a playroom.
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Drum roll!!
