I’ve talked about this a little on my instagram home tour, but I thought I would publish it here for others in a similar situation as ours to not feel alone or ashamed. We share a bedroom with our toddler.
Before moving into our current condo, we rented the guest house that my mom has now turned into her AirBnb. It was an in between of a studio space and a one bedroom. I had lived here through college and Michael moved in with me when we first started dating. The space was working great with just me, and even with Michael and I both. but when Baby Parker was born, we were getting nervous about space. We had planned to move out but we were able to buy our own property when he was just over a year old. We found this awesome two bedroom two bath in Canoga Park that we fell in love with. it was so much more space than we were used to and we were finally able to have a real kitchen instead of the kitchenette we had been working with for a few years. It felt like the perfect home for our family.
But being that it was our first home, we wanted a little more security with our financial situation so we decided to rent out the second bedroom to one of my sister-in-laws. So this meant our space was now confined to just a one bedroom for us and our growing toddler.
We originally had a crib for him but he kept growing and growing and for his 2nd birthday, Michael made him an awesome custom bed with two huge storage drawers underneath to hide the growing amount of toys. When he built the bed we swapped our bed to the opposite wall so it didn’t feel like dorm beds. I think we did a really good job using an ikea bookshelf and more toy baskets to make that part of the bedroom feel like parkers.
Does Parker end up creeping into our bed a few nights a week? Yes, absolutely. But would that be happening even if he had his own room? Most likely. So for now I feel pretty good about the situation and Parker loves his bed!
Living in LA is expensive. If you are in a similar situation and feeling guilty that you can’t give your kid his/her own bedroom, just know you aren’t alone. You’re doing the best you can currently and there are so many ways to make it feel like they have your own space and so do you!