The benefits of simplicity

I have been working on simplicity around our home. We live in a smallish (about 2000 square feet), 4 bedroom & 2 bath home. It is a simple ranch style, small kitchen. The original house was about 1100 SF. Previous owners added on a family room, enclosed the porch to make a really hot & sunny hallway leading to the family room, and created a laundry room within the garage. We added an additional bedroom in the garage (where Daddy and I sleep).

Previously, we had the 3 older girls sharing the master bedroom (with bath) and the little ones sharing a bedroom. The remaining bedroom is a craft and storage room (we have like no garage now, and we all love to craft). At the request of our oldest daughter, we made a change this weekend. She asked if she could share the master bedroom with the little ones. She actually made the request a few weeks ago, but we let her sit on it awhile to make sure she was thinking clearly!

We decided to try it as the fighting amongst the oldest 3 was frying our parental nerves! The room was always messy and untidy. We just couldn't stay on top of them to stay on top of it.

So, we made the change. The master has my eldest on the bottom bunk of a set of bunkbeds and the babies sharing a queen-size bed. There is plenty of room for their toys, in fact more room than before.

Casey and Sarah share what used to be the babies bedroom. They each have a twin size bed with nightstand in between. The nightstand houses a reading lamp and alarm clock. One of Casey's frequent complaints was that she didn't have a light to read at night. Now she does...and she's tickled!

One of my goals in this whole process was to simplify everything! Clothing, toys, books, all of it!
Less stuff = Less to clean up. I did not have them do their closet - I did it. The master has a walk in closet and a regular closet within the bathroom. My oldest daughter has the bathroom closet to herself. The walk in closet has lots of shelving! I decided to not move much of Sarah's stuff into her new room. She has ADHD - mild, on NO medication - but enough that she cannot stay on top of clutter. In her new room she has her clothes, bed, and a nightstand drawer with her paper, journal, pens, etc. I'm thinking the simplification of her environment will help her stay on top of it and feel successful. Certainly, not having older sister yell at her will help. I was a little surprised to find that she actually doesn't have that much stuff - what do 9 year olds play with anyway?

Just making the decision to simplify their stuff was a relief to me!