It's the end of another era, in a way.
When we moved to this house, five and a half years ago, Daniel had already left home. But it was important to us to have a bedroom for him, which we painted in a colour of his choice, and hung the curtains I'd made for his room at our previous house. Richard also put together Daniel's bed, transported out from our UK house.
After discussion with Daniel, on the other side of the world, Richard then built a desk unit underneath the bed:
.. and, by the time Daniel was ready to come back to Cyprus for a three-month furlough early in 2008, the desk was varnished, and a new set of bookshelves had appeared at the end:
Daniel used his bed again in 2010 when he had his second three-month furlough in Cyprus. But in April this year, as regular readers of these posts will be aware, Daniel married Becky. They hope to come and visit us in January some time, but will be staying in our guest flat. We talked about turning Daniel's room into a double guest room, but it wouldn't exactly be used very much since we have the entire ground floor of this house available for visitors.
We may well move our double sofa-bed (currently in my study) up there at some point. But in the meantime, Richard is taking a six-month sabbatical from work. Among other things, he plans to write his second book. And he has wanted a study of his own for some time. So... the obvious room to use is Daniel's.
Happily, when we offered his high bed with built-in desk to our friends, their eldest daughter said she would like it. So yesterday Richard dismantled it, with Tim's help, and then remantled (if that's not a word, it should be) the bed at our friends' house.
Ikea has proved useful once more, so that Richard now has a comfortable chair for reading in, even if Tessie thinks it was bought for her benefit:
And he has constructed a kind of desk out of a couple of inexpensive Ikea tables:
The chair is his office one, borrowed for the duration. Since it's important for an office chair to be comfortable, and one can't sit in every Ikea chair for half an hour or more to test them, the best idea seemed to be to use one which he knows from experience suits him.
It looks good. I'm sure it will be useful. At the same time, it feels like another bittersweet stage in the 'empty nest' journey.
When we moved to this house, five and a half years ago, Daniel had already left home. But it was important to us to have a bedroom for him, which we painted in a colour of his choice, and hung the curtains I'd made for his room at our previous house. Richard also put together Daniel's bed, transported out from our UK house.
After discussion with Daniel, on the other side of the world, Richard then built a desk unit underneath the bed:
.. and, by the time Daniel was ready to come back to Cyprus for a three-month furlough early in 2008, the desk was varnished, and a new set of bookshelves had appeared at the end:
Daniel used his bed again in 2010 when he had his second three-month furlough in Cyprus. But in April this year, as regular readers of these posts will be aware, Daniel married Becky. They hope to come and visit us in January some time, but will be staying in our guest flat. We talked about turning Daniel's room into a double guest room, but it wouldn't exactly be used very much since we have the entire ground floor of this house available for visitors.
We may well move our double sofa-bed (currently in my study) up there at some point. But in the meantime, Richard is taking a six-month sabbatical from work. Among other things, he plans to write his second book. And he has wanted a study of his own for some time. So... the obvious room to use is Daniel's.
Happily, when we offered his high bed with built-in desk to our friends, their eldest daughter said she would like it. So yesterday Richard dismantled it, with Tim's help, and then remantled (if that's not a word, it should be) the bed at our friends' house.
Ikea has proved useful once more, so that Richard now has a comfortable chair for reading in, even if Tessie thinks it was bought for her benefit:
And he has constructed a kind of desk out of a couple of inexpensive Ikea tables:
The chair is his office one, borrowed for the duration. Since it's important for an office chair to be comfortable, and one can't sit in every Ikea chair for half an hour or more to test them, the best idea seemed to be to use one which he knows from experience suits him.
It looks good. I'm sure it will be useful. At the same time, it feels like another bittersweet stage in the 'empty nest' journey.
1 comment:
Oh, Sue, I can't imagine what it would be like transforming one of our offspring's rooms, though John would LOVE to have a study! But it wasn't the room Daniel had as a child, so maybe it's not too difficult. And the fact that he's now happily married makes it MUCH better! :o)
How nice that Richard is able to have a sabbatical from work! I hope the book goes well. Will you enjoy having him 'under your feet' all the time? :oD
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