5 Steps to a Bedroom Refresh

Over the past few months, my teenage son has given me several hints that I've responded to with some pretty big "mom fails"!
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• As he approached 6 feet tall, my son mentioned that maybe he was too big for the twin bed he's been sleeping in since he was 4.  I suggested sleeping curled up.
• Months ago, my son mentioned in passing that he wasn't a big fan of the bright blue paint color in his bedroom.  I bought him a new bedspread.
• A few weeks back, my son complained that his mattress was uncomfortable.  I flipped the mattress over and said, "There - see if that fixes it."
• I was harping on my son for not closing his dresser drawers, and he said the dresser was "broken."  I rolled my eyes and thought that was a lame excuse.

When it finally hit me what all of these little hints added up to was when I went to his room and noticed those dresser drawers open again.  As I tried to close one, I found that the dresser really WAS broken!  The top is cracked in half and the middle drawer will not close!  I sat down on his bed for a moment  - OW! - it is uncomfortable!  I looked around at the blue walls and red closet door that we'd painted before he moved into his first "big boy" room nearly a decade ago, and immediately felt guilty for being so involved in other projects that I'd ignored his hints that it was time for a room refresh!

I suggested some fresh paint, a bigger bed, and a functional dresser in return for his purging and organizing his room.  It was a deal!  This past weekend, he began the prep work using these 5 steps that will work for someone of any age who is ready to refresh their bedroom.

1. Review what you wear
I suggest you empty one drawer at a time and go through every item separating into piles of things you will wear and things you won't wear.  If it doesn't fit or you don't like it, don't let it take up space in your dresser or closet!  Put items that you will wear back in the space and relocate the items you won't wear (in our case, they will go in the basement in a tote for my younger son, but you could put them in a box for Goodwill.)  Repeat with each drawer and section of your closet.  Don't forget shoes, scarves, belts, bags, etc.

2. Curate your surfaces
Empty each shelf, dresser top, or drawer.  Similar to what you did with your clothes, review each item and decide to keep in place, keep but relocate, or get rid of.  Put the keep in place items back, the keep but relocation items in their new home, and box up other items for donation.

3. Clear the floor
Look closely at anything that touches the floor that isn't furniture.  If it's trash, throw it away.  If it's not trash, why is it on the floor?  Find a new home for it either within your room or elsewhere in your home, or donate it.

4. Measure and plan
Measure everything!   Write down the dimensions of your room and all of your furniture that you plan to keep.  Create a scale model of your room and all the furniture to help decide on a floor plan.  You can go old school and use grid paper to map out your room and then cut out pieces of furniture to scale or you could use a digital option like planyourroom.com.  Arranging and rearranging on paper or virtually will save you time, effort, and money!  It will help you clearly see how much space you have so when you buy new items, they are the correct size.  You can also determine where you want to position everything ahead of time to cut down on the muscle needed to move furniture!  

5. Move only once
Once you've decided what to keep and what you need to purchase, only move your furniture once.  For our project, we will be ordering the new items and they will stay in the garage until after the room has been painted.  On painting day, we will empty the old furniture and remove it from the room.  Remaining furniture will be moved to the middle of the room until the paint is dry. The existing furniture will be moved into the location we decided on in step 4, and the new furniture will be brought to the room and assembled in it's new home.

I'm excited for my son's bedroom refresh (and a little sad to cover the paint that has complemented several little boy themes over the years) and I'm hopeful this process will help him learn how to keep his space organized and make it his own.  Are you inspired to do a little refresh of your own??

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Sources
Photo by Sonnie Hiles on Unsplash