A 12 Year Old Boy’s Room

Call me a bad mother, but as a rule,  I do not clean my two older children’s bedrooms.  They are 12 and 16 years old, and I think they should do it themselves.  That is just the way I was raised.  I can’t remember a time that my mother ever cleaned my room for me.  Now, there are a few exceptions to this rule.  I will go into my 12 year old son’s room and put away his laundry and hang up the clothes on the floor.  And if we are having people over I will go in their rooms and help them get everything looking acceptable to me.  And if they are away at summer camp, I do go into their rooms and spend an entire day doing a big clean.  They always know if they are gone for a week, Mommy does that.  Also, usually after Christmas we do a big clean, but they help with that.  But for the most part, they clean their own rooms.  This is difficult for me because they do not clean their rooms to my standards.  One of the rules at my house is if you want to go do something with a friend or have a friend over, your room must be cleaned.  But it is still never as clean as it would be if I were to clean it myself.  Are you feeling me yet?  I work a full time job, and I choose to let some things go because I refuse to spend all of my time cleaning up after other people. 

I am not gonna lie, most days my kids bedrooms are disgusting pig sties.  It kills me to walk by their bedrooms and see them like that.  And my son’s room has that teenage athlete smell.  Yuck!  The day before Thanksgiving we had a big clean because we were having Thanksgiving at our house, and I wanted everything to look nice.  So I took a little break from painting and we cleaned.  I made my son clean his room on Tuesday, but on Wednesday I went in to check it, and ended up spending at least an hour in there making it more acceptable.  It still was not perfect, but it was the best I could do that day.  He was hunting with my dad that day, and he arrived home just as I was finishing up, and I would not let him step foot in his room until I took pictures of it.  Because I knew that was my only chance for a while to even feel close to comfortable showing you his bedroom.  So here it is, and there is a list of what I want to do at the bottom. 

This is looking in from the hallway.  There is a chair rail in this room that was here when we bought that house.  And the walls were already painted this color of yellow, and had been painted recently, so since I knew my son’s bedroom was going to be a Pittsburgh Steeler’s room, I kept the yellow and just painted above the chair rail on one wall with black chalkboard paint.  The carpet in this room is almost white it is so light.  I would never have chosen it because I know what pigs my children are.  This area rug was an extra piece of carpeting that I had binded from when we laid carpet in the old house.  I threw it down in here so he would not ruin the carpet.  But I have a hard time keeping it smooth.  It always has a bump or two in it, but it does the job of keeping the carpet clean. 

My son’s room does not look like it came out of a magazine.  But he is very happy and comfortable in there, and it is cute.  That is all that matters!  He seems to hibernate in here the majority of the time with the door locked, so it works for him!  Sometimes I wish he would come out and join the family though!  Here is a list of what we have already done, what we need to do in this room, and what I am dreaming of doing, if budget permits eventually. 

• Paint chalkboard wall
• Buy loft bed
• Add more hanging space in the closet
• Add vertical blinds
• Make over his dresser and nightstand
• Or purchase matching dresser, nightstand and TV stand (in my dreams)
• Recover bulletin board
• Cure chalkboard wall
• Change out the boob light
• Purchase a new lamp
• Change the curtains
• De clutter
• Paint door and closet door black
• Upgrade shelving
• Change shoe storage to hidden shoe storage