apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

ha! my room looked alot like this...girly though. my mom prided herself on being organized and said she could find anything she needed in less than two mins. i told her with my messy room i could do the same...and proved it...well under two mins. i was required by my dad to have a path cleared so if he needed to get in there he could....i think he just wanted to know there was a capret and floor under the mass. although i wont permit our kids this messy privelage, as i find it a fire hazzard!!!

yes! I love this picture... everyone needs to go through those years as a teenager when their room is their personal cave to do whatever with. Unfortunately, I didn't really have a room like this growing up. Yes, it was messy and I never cleaned it... but my mom never let me decorate it how I wanted to. She never let me put posters on the walls or anything on the walls, and the decor and color scheme was never me, it was her. Pink & white striped wallpaper and pink and green floral bedding. I hated it. I still feel resentful about it. Ugh! Parents should let their teenagers be teenagers and have their own space and creative freedom!

Honestly.. my room still has laundry on the floor a lot /gasp! I know its horrible but my god doing laundry takes so much time it eats up your whole day. Now i've started doing laundry when my laundry bin begins (hopefully!) overflowing, it takes up the whole day, but i dont have to worry about it anymore.

My room was MUCH worse than this... as my best friend could attest to after a four-day-cleaning-death-march in there. I needed an excavator. It's funny, I hate clutter now.

Wow. I missed out on this privilege being the daughter of a former Navy officer. I wasn't even allowed to hang posters. :( Maybe I should cut my daughters some slack and let them loosen up the structure in their room a bit.

The primary task of adolescence is to establish independence - to start becoming an adult. A teenager who isn't allowed to establish his or her independence in a safe way (e.g., not cleaning their room, choosing wall decor, choosing their after-school activities) will take that independence in less safe ways when they get a chance (e.g., partying, drinking, driving recklessly). Makes a cluttered room seem like a good trade-off.

My room was just like this -- perhaps worse, but also smaller. I always had a path, but there was stuff everywhere and on top of everything.

I still have the tendancy to let clothes go wherever they fall (I blame most of this on my husband), but I'm much more organized in the rest of the house. No one goes in our bedroom anyway.

And like others have said, I'm totally for teenagers getting to express themselves via their bedrooms! Who wants to be the weird kid whose mom clean his room for him?

Adolescents can establish independence in other ways, such as through travel or hobbies and extracurricular activities, so requiring a clean room doesn't necessarily doom them to making unsafe choices. And allowing a messy room will not necessarily inoculate them against making unsafe choices. Wish it were that simple!

That said, I'd prefer to let a kid make a mess in their own room. Unfortunately, my husband can't tolerate it and since our teen's bedroom is visible from our entryway we require her to keep it somewhat picked up (not pristine). In another year or so, she can keep her dorm room as messy as her roommate will allow!

I'm actually glad she's not a neat freak (like me). I really want her to live a full and rich life, unencumbered by housework and that nagging feeling that she should pick up stuff or clean the house. I never want her to get herself in a situation where she's picking up after another adult.

Oh, mine was much, much worse. Two feet of stuff covering the entire floor, the bed usually piled with clothes (it was actually really comfortable to snuggle down into them and make a little nest to sleep in). My mother would draw the line when things started to go missing in the house (dishes, every pair of scissors we owned, all the nail clippers...) and would say either I clean it or she would. I never wanted her to do it, who knows what she would find down in those piles! Now, five years on my own and I am a bit of a neat freak. Somewhat disorganized is as bad as my apartment ever gets. I always told my mom that once I had my own space I would keep it clean. I'm not really sure why it worked that way, but I'm glad it did.

Mine was much worse than this too! And if you can believe it, smaller. My room was exactly 8ft x 8ft, had an old fashioned radiator taking up valuable real estate, and was too small for my minimal Ikea bed to fit without my modifiying it (removed the footboard and propped up the rails on milk crates! Effective and useful for storage, lol).
I had the dirty pile and the clean pile that only I knew how to navigate, and also knew exactly where everything was (usually under the bed). The only thing I was meticulous about was the order in which my CDs were put into the case.
Luckily, I was allowed to decorate my room however I saw fit. I painted it ruby red and decorated the ceiling with posters and knickknacks because it was made out of some kind of foam that easily accepted push pins. I had a collection of name tags from my friends' retail jobs. I cut and finished my own shelves to fit the walls, and drew all over my mirror with paint markers.
My mother is threatening to renovate the room and I'm encouraging her but it still gives me pangs to think about it!

lunaorion - take lots of photos first.