Teen Room

What is it with Teenagers and the need to have a messy Room?

I decided to go take my camera and take a completely candid picture (I just opened the door and shot the pictures…I didn’t move a thing – oh believe me….it was difficult for me to do!) of all 5 kids bedrooms.

I have to admit – I used to go spastic on my 4 boys growing up with their rooms.  I would come in the morning to either wake them up or say good morning…I would open that door and instantly get mad.  Who likes to be woken up with “This room is a mess! You need to pick up your clothes, put trash in the trash can and clean off that dresser!!”.  Nope….not a nice way to start their day and would instantly put me in a bad mood.

So….once I was a single mom of 4 boys (in 1999) I decided at some point to let it go.  I had to discipline them in so many other ways…they had chores to do around the house and their rooms were just a constant source of irritation to me (and them).  I had a friend tell me that I need to pick my battles. That hit home. I decided that I didn’t need to make their room MY battle.   So for the most part I try to avoid the teens bedrooms.  I will let it go a week (maybe even 2 sometimes) before I get on them and really make them clean it. I don’t insist that their beds be made every day (although they know that I want them to do that), and I don’t hang them by their toes if they don’t put their dirty clothes in their dirty clothes hamper …right in their room).

Today I will show you the “Messy” Teen rooms….and over the next few days we are going to talk about teen bedrooms.  (I’d love your pictures of your candid teen bedrooms!!)

The oldest we have living at home (17 years old boy)   Note how the futon is down. He sleeps there.  We were lucky enough last year to get a Bedroom Makeover From Walmart & Your Zone. (you can see what the room should look like in the video) At the time he picked the loft bed. I thought he would get real tired of climbing up there because if he really had his way, he would sleep on the floor over the heater/air conditioning vent. (Yes…really)  But he thought the bed  was cool. I told him that if he got the loft bed…he had to sleep in it. The futon that we had and moved in here was to sit on.  ”Mom..I will sleep in the bed…it is cool. I promise!!”.  LOL ….yeah..sure.

Example #2.  My step son is 16.  He chose to have his bedroom in the basement when we got the room make over. They used to share a room. We gave the older of the two – first pick. Did he want the basement room (unfinished basement) or the room makeover. He said he was fine with either and let his step brother pick.  ”D” (step brother)  picked the basement.  He loves his “man cave”.  I’ll do a post this week on how we made this room over.  But…note here – no pillow cases on the pillows! Ewww….!  why?  That just seems so yucky to me.  I have a whole basket of pillow cases that he could pick from if for some reason when his sheets got washed….he couldn’t find his pillow cases.  Bed is not made (its hard to tell in this shot)…here, I’ll give you another look from a different angle.  You can see the unmade bed…and the stuff all over his dresser in this shot. But over all the room is not too bad.  Keep in mind this is after his Dad told him to clean his room yesterday.

I also got pictures of the triplets rooms.  They aren’t teens, they are 9 1/2 years old, but I thought I’d show you anyway.

The boys A&Z share a room.  It’s not too bad. But we do try to stay on them more to keep it clean.  A is great about cleaning his portion of the room (most days). Z really could care less.  You frequently hear A saying, “Z your stuff is a mess in here. You need to clean it up.” LOL  So if A wasn’t in the room with him and if we didn’t have them pick up their room daily…I’m sure Z will certainly turn into the typical “messy room” teen.  I’m not so sure with A.  I think he will keep his room clean on his own….like his sister.

Now…my step daughters “E” room almost always looks clean.  She gets up and makes her bed (as does A – but Z rarely does) every morning.  She keeps things picked up. Don’t you love the fish pillow?  Her pick when we went shopping at Cabelas last year!

So – I have “bared all” in my kid’s bedrooms to you. See..I always say my house is far from perfect…I’m human just like you guys!!  But I want you to show me some of your teens rooms.  Tell me what the hardest thing for you is?

Do you “stay on them” like I used to do with my kids? Or do you just “chill” and try not to get worked up over their rooms?   (at least for 1-2 weeks..I just can’t take more than that).  Do you ever make the really clean them?

Please share!

Walmart $500 Bedroom Makeover Giveaway! *CLOSED*

I was lucky enough to be asked by Walmart to do this bedroom makeover  and I am thrilled to be able to pass it onto you. They provided me with a $500 gift card to redo one of my teens rooms. I have to present a video of the finished product to them and they will feature it on their “Get Inspired” area of their web site.

Walmart has a great line of products for Teen bedrooms called Your Zone. These are all mix and match, very reasonable priced products that make it both easy and affordable to completely redo a bedroom for a price that most of us can handle.  I know for me, bedrooms are lower on the list of priorities for spending much money on…so this was so much fun to do. They have a really cool tool on their site that lets your virtually design your room.  We were able to use the make over section and Tim helped to figure out what he wanted in his room.  (Of course I had to make sure I had some organizing features in it too…you will see when my video is complete.)

We have 5 children living in our 2,000 sq ft home.  We are a little cramped…but its all good. We have had our two teenage boys sharing a bedroom. Tim 16 years old and Drew, 15 years old have had a set of bunk beds, two dressers and not much else in this 12×12 room (approximate). I discussed this project and the two of them made the decision. Tim was going to stay upstairs and have his room redone by Walmart.  Drew was going to go to the basement and have an unfinished portion of the basement made into his “Man Cave” (as he has nick named it) So off we go. Stay tuned to my blog as I will have pictures of Drew’s basement transformation too.

I will soon have Tim’s room complete. We have his bed up and most everything purchased, walls painted and we are almost ready to go. Stay tuned for the completion video.

RULES TO WIN (Please follow if you want to be eligible to win)

To have a chance to win this $500 gift card from Walmart to be used to purchase Your Zone products to redo your teens bedroom..this is what you need to do.  I am going to include a little younger than teen also. I have 8 year old triplets and they love the products. So since I do need to pick a cut off age, instead of going 12- years and older (this is really geared more for the 12-17 year age group)….I am going to go down to 8 years old (by August 20, 2009) and no older than 17 years old…be eligible for this giveaway.  The winner will not be picked by a voting process because I want all of you to have a fair chance.

You must agree to spend the $500 to redo the bedroom  if you win.  I would like a before and after picture that I can  post on my site.

THESE FIRST 3 HAVE TO BE DONE TO BE ELIGIBLE.

1) Go to the Walmart Your Zone site and tell me if you would be remodeling for a girl or boy…their age and which bed is your favorite.

2) Your e-mail address has to be easily accessible either on your blog or preferably  in one of the two above comments.

FOR EXTRA CHANCES TO WIN: (Each of these has to have a separate comment.)

1) You can  subscribe to my blog either by e-mail or by feeder. Come back and comment in a separate comment that you have done so.

2) You can  blog about this contest with the link back to this post. (10 extra chances…make sure to add a comment for each. (example…blog#1, blog#2…)

3) Follow me on Twitter

4) Tweet this contest. You can do this up to 3 times per day – leave a comment with link for each one.

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11) MomTv – (5 extra chances to win)  Sign in and join me on my live show Monday nights at 8:30 pm est.  Leave the name you signed in with for the show, so that I will know it is you. Be sure to add 5 comments…MomTV #1, Momtv#2..so that you get credit for all.

See there are lots of ways to enter!!

This contest will be open to US residents only.  You must respond within 48 hours if you win.

This contest ends on Thursday September 10th, 2009 at 11:59pm est *THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED ANY COMMENTS AFTER 11:59pm est on SEPT 10th WILL NOT BE COUNTED**