With the change of plan to move back in, we talked seriously about how to fit our five kids into the two upstairs bedrooms–the fourth, downstairs bedroom currently being reserved as a home office for Esther.

Between the kids’ age gaps (or lack of them), personalities, sensory profiles, and the difficulty of parenting from the distance of Mount Everest a steep set of stairs, we decided the best plan was to subdivide the bedrooms into smaller spaces.

Each boy gets their own space, but since there was no good way to split the girls’ bedroom into three smaller parts, we decided the girls will cycle on a longer-term basis through sharing with a sister and having their own space.

We didn’t tell the kids ahead of time, so it was fun watching them figure it out.

The kids were very helpful all day, carrying boards upstairs and then returning to the adult near the saw with cut-length messages written on board scraps, as well as handing screws, fetching tools, and keeping busy with odd jobs.

Our four-year-old son adopted a hammer and was seen using it on and off all day –sometimes sanctioned, sometimes not. Sometimes not so helpful, other times much more so.

I didn’t get a picture of it, but at one point he was helping the dads tap studs into place, perfectly mimicking their movements.

The girls’ room breakdown can’t be technically qualified as two smaller bedrooms, since you have to walk through one to get to the other.

Floor space was at such a premium, though, that we opted to value the space saved (by not having a hallway) over the luxury of separate entrances and the fulfillment of the technical definition of a bedroom. All four rooms have a window, at least. And the guys constructed the walls with screws to simplify takedown if we ever need to alter the blueprint of the rooms.

A couple kids helped vacuum and roll up the carpet in the boys’ bedroom to get it out of the way for construction. Months of construction = so dirty. Pretty much needs to be powerwashed before reinstalling.

We decided on an entry hallway in the boys’ room, to allow the door to the top of the stairs to be taken out. That door was cut down to fit under the eaves anyway (and still didn’t fully fit, because of the inswing. Huh. Guess they didn’t think about that when they put it in.)

Our oldest son gleefully removed the door and, with a cousin, launched it into the scrap wood trailer. “Guess we won’t be seeing that door again anytime soon,” he said. Or ever, buddy. Or ever.

The guys were barely able to finish the framing, using up every reasonable length of 2×4 that we had on hand, including all the new ones we had just purchased that morning. It was a good point to call it a day.

Ain’t it beautiful? There will be an open hallway area that will have space for shelving or something. Each boy’s bedroom will have its own door.

The four-year-old’s space will be small, but it is long enough to fit a twin-size bed. With some creativity, it should be a cozy space for him.

All the kids were excited, although the reaction was a little more mixed than I expected. “Are we actually going to be able to paint?” asked our oldest daughter, sour-faced, prepared for disappointment (yet again).

Later, at supper, when we asked the kids what they thought, our youngest daughter (age 6) asked, “Are those really the walls for our bedroom?” When we told her that, yes, they were, she said, quite seriously, “I don’t think I’d like to see through the walls in our bedroom.” At which point we realized she thought we were telling her the framing was the finished wall. Poor kid!

No, kiddo, the walls will have drywall. And yes, dear, we will be painting.