Jared and Josiah's Room

In a family like ours on a single income with three boys, I'm sure someone will always be sharing a room.

At our old house in Iowa it was Jonathan and Jared. (Here's a tour!) Josiah had his own amazing room. (See it here!) When we lived in a dorm for Gary's schooling last fall, all three boys shared a room (it's ugly  here), same as at Grandma & Grandpa's house last winter. (Catch a glimpse here.)

Even for the first couple of months here in Ohio, all three boys shared one room. I really wanted a guest room and a space for my craft supplies. This house has one smallish bedroom downstairs and two large though awkward spaces upstairs. I didn't think it would work to have one kidlet downstairs while the rest of us were upstairs.

But when we went to Michigan for training last month, Jonathan was really excited about his own room, so we let him try it out. Turns out bedtime went a lot better! So when we came home, I did some rearranging and now Jonathan lives in the guest/craft room. I'll show you that tomorrow.

This is now Jared and Josiah's room! Note the lack of a crib. Hold me while I cry!

Way back before Jared, our second little dude, turned two, Gary made a loft bed and a twin bed from Ana White's plans. (This is what they looked like then.) Josiah, our third little dude is now two and uses the regular twin bed.

I found the US States Map at Walmart for $20. Grandma Gibson made the jean bedspread.

Josiah still uses diapers, so there's a changing pad on his dresser. I used a couple more maps here too. You can also see the banner that used to hang in his nursery!

When Josiah gets a little bigger, the changing pad will go and this fun metal airplane with take its place. How many airplanes is that now? Have you been counting?

Extra binkies (now only allowed while sleeping) hide on top of one shadow box while small wooden airplanes park inside.

I hung a couple shelves at the end of the bed as a place to put a few toys. I keep their tractor collection here, as well as a well-loved, beat-up barn. Every little boy needs a fire hat, and I made the airplane art a couple years ago.

More airplanes in the form of hooks hang on the closet door. Josiah's towel stays in the bathroom for now. Even more airplane hooks (from Grandma Joycie!) hang inside the closet where I keep the boys' church activity backpacks. Their closet needs a good sorting and straightening, then I might show you. :)

Jared is now in the loft bed. His dresser is underneath, along with a striped rug and a red bean bag.

More maps are on the wall and a collection of painted bird houses hang under the loft bed. 

The space between the bed and the wall is narrow. A few maps make it colorful without giving anyone something to bump into. Notice how the window goes all the way to the wall? It's actually the other half of the window in the stairs and the drywall doesn't go all the way to the window! It's literally one window with a wall that goes up to the middle of it!

A plant and a few display items are on top of Jared's dresser. 

Since the slats of the bed holding the mattress in place are open, I keep the bedspread (another one made by Grandma Gibson) tucked under. It makes the view under the loft bed a lot more pleasing.

Here you can see that the beds are made from plain lumber. We still like the unfinished, rough look. They can't exactly get messed up! The beds were also very easy to unscrew and pull apart to fit in the moving van. Highly recommend them! 

See how close the bed is, well, it actually covers a part of the window! The ladder blocks more of the window, but the boys can still see out. I've always just had a valance and some sort of blinds in their room. I like how it dresses up the window but doesn't give them a big piece of material to hang off of and pull around... Not that they'd do that. Noooooo!

I know it's a bad picture, but here's Jared scurrying up the ladder. Did you notice the huge stickers on the window? Grandma Joycie sent them for the boys and we moved them up to their room after their birthday party. So fun!

The boys love the little fort-like feeling from being up so high off the ground on this loft bed! By the time I got this picture of Jared on his bed, both Jonathan and Josiah had joined him!

Sometimes Josiah likes to use the ladder so he can see out the window better.

To finish off the loosely travel-themed room, Gary hung this light fixture. It's a freebie that Grandma Gibson was given. Perfect!

Hope you enjoyed the picture-heavy post on our shared boys' room! Do your kids share a room? Does it work?