Don't get me wrong -- we are VERY lucky to live in a co-op, but we have a space problem and cannot afford to move.
When my wife and I moved in to our current apartment –- a “junior four” -- towards the end of 2002, we had no children. In relatively short order, that all changed. We had a baby girl named Charlotte in 2004, and then, two years later, a little boy named Oliver. They have shared the same little room -– one ostensibly designed to be either a dining area or a study -– for their entire lives. They have never known any other arrangement. Mercifully, Charlotte & Oliver have always gotten along and have never perceived their sleeping accommodations as problematic. As their parents, however, we have always known it was a dilemma waiting to happen.
As much as we’ve repeatedly entertained the concept of moving to another, more spacious apartment, the fates have aligned against us. Hamstrung by various prohibitive circumstances, we have been emphatically persuaded to stay put. As such, the configuration of the kids’ bedroom has gradually evolved from a single crib way back when to a crib and a daybed and then onto a space-saving bunkbed -– the iteration that has continued to this day. By and large, the bunkbed has really worked -– and even created the illusion of privacy. Charlotte has the top bunk, and can happily read without bothering her slumbering little brother on the bottom bunk. In a room as tiny as theirs, it has been as close to a solution as seemingly plausible.
But with both kids now officially into their early teens, the cozy little space that has been their room for the span of their respective lives is no longer cutting it. They each need their own areas, so to speak, with more semblance of privacy -– if at all possible -– than they are currently allotted. They need more room for desks of their own, freeing them from vying for either the dining room table or the breakfast table in the kitchen to do their homework.
The wife and I have struggled with this pressing necessity for some time, vainly trying to think of ways to divide their chamber into some intangibly more accommodating arrangement. Recently, after much hemming and hawing on my part, we have decided to do a wee bit of renovation. Much to my pronounced chagrin, we are shortly to undertake the task of moving one of their walls about three and a half feet to the east, effectively blowing their room out a bit, as it were.
This may not sound like much, but giving their room that extra little bit of width should enable numerous configurations of beds, desks and bureaus that might be more conducive to their needs. Along the way, we’re also going to jettison a lot of their less-cherished toys, get rid of some largely defeated Ikea chests, dismantle the bunkbed, re-paint, and get some new furniture to outfit the re-invented space. That all sounds promising, right?
Well, it comes with a price -– or prices, I should say. Beyond the actual, financial costs of this renovation, there is the deficit of space in the living room that is shortly to become part of the kids’ expanded room. As it happens, that particular bit of real estate is where I keep my desk, my computer and this large, metal dentist’s cabinet I bought from a long-since-vanished antique shop on Lafayette Street back in the 90’s. So, as the kids’ room prepares to jut out to the east, that metal case and my desk will summarily go … where exactly?
The jury’s still out on that one, unfortunately. To say that I am reluctant and not-just-a-little depressed about this impending development is a Herculean understatement, but -– as the British say -– needs must.
This is all poised to transpire in the next couple of weeks. As such, since we are going to have to dismantle my desktop computer and all that, there may be a delay in posting until the next iteration of my work space –- if one can be credibly divined -– reveals itself.
All suggestions are welcome, by the way.
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