Comstock Chronicles: the Great Summer Room Paint
why we didn't pay professionals
What we did and why
What have we been doing this summer? We painted the kids’ rooms, and yes, it is taking the whole summer because I’m having the kids do it themselves. The idea is this:
Encourage the children in the stewardship of their rooms and possessions.
Prompt the children to discard unused, broken, or outgrown toys.
Give the children a profitable occupation when they might otherwise be bored, seeking entertainment, or bugging one another.
What we learned
In the process, I’ve been learning many things. Here are a few.
Painting is a messy business.
Prepping takes three times as long as painting.
Working peacefully with others requires frequent pauses to hear preferences and address fears.
When I value my children’s things, they value them too.
My kids own a lot of junk of little value.
Whenever we move furniture, blankets, or toys, we have to reestablish boundaries.
“Just because your bed is in his room doesn’t mean you can burst into his room whenever you like.”
“Yes, his toys are in the living room, but that’s because he doesn’t have a place to put them right now. You still have to ask permission to play with them.”
“If everyone is sleeping in the same room, no one gets to listen to their music at bedtime. Rather, you can listen to the fan noise. And everyone must turn off the lights at 9:30.”
“You may not take your Nerf guns to bed with you.”
“No, you don’t have to sleep where your bed is, if you don’t care for the company there. You may sleep on the couch if you prefer. But you must put your blankets away in the morning, and the couch is not your property.”
No Professionals?
You might be wondering why we didn’t pay a professional to do this. Our oldest asked us this very question multiple times. I suppose we could’ve. We also could’ve paid a professional to teach our kids the lessons they’re learning through doing it themselves. But what’s the point of that? We’re not rolling in dough.
God arranged our lives with built-in lessons in patience, long-suffering, endurance, kindness, cooperation, and understanding that don’t cost a dime. If we’re willing to “take the classes,” so to speak, we get the lessons for free! All the classes designed to help us grow more like Christ are right in front of us: starting with loving our family and helping them to grow.
To create an inviting, safe, and orderly place to live in and welcome others is at the heart of hospitality and growth. I love how home life mirrors the spiritual life so well.
*Disclaimer: Teaching your kids to paint their room is not a sure-fire, guaranteed way of building character. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. If my children get arrested later in life for graffitiing freeway overpasses, that’s on them.
How it went
Our project began by moving a set of bunk beds into my daughter’s room, where everyone would sleep while we worked on the boys’ room. Some of the boys’ toys had to live in the living room too, to protect Lego projects and to clear out the closet where my youngest has had his bed. Yes, the youngest had a Harry Potter closet bed until now. He was very proud of it.
The boys chose their colors, and aside from cutting in around the windows, they did most of the work themselves. They moved their toys, TSP-ed the walls, and rolled on the paint. Their faces lit up when they coated their walls in their chosen colors. It was like magic. My oldest chose Tourquoise. My daughter chose Lover’s Knot, and my youngest chose Ireland Hills.
I touched up the trim and painted their ceilings. The ceiling painting was a test of my patience because the pole for our paint roller was ten feet long, making it awkward to maneuver in a small room with a pile of furniture in the center. I was particularly irritable on ceiling-painting days, and everyone was sore afterwards.
After my sons’ room was finished, all the beds went into the boys’ room while we painted my daughter’s room next. For this step, we moved some of my daughter’s furniture into our living room. This just about drove me bananas for the two to three weeks it was there.
After a week of more prep, painting, touch-up, and ceiling rolling, we finally finished. In one day of mad-furniture moving, we dragged everyone’s stuff back into place, and I began to feel human again. It was then that our hard work began to pay off.
My daughter had, until this point, resisted parting with any of her material possessions, but when she began to move her things back in, she changed her mind. It was truly a celebratory day, watching her pile flimflam in the hallway for me to discard.
Not yet complete
I’d love to show you before-and-after pictures, but we haven’t finished yet. Next, we’ll give the kids a budget and teach them how to thrift, dumpster dive, and garage shop for decor. I have a feeling my oldest will ask if he can have the money instead of the decorations. My daughter will complain that the amount isn’t enough. And my youngest will be happy without any money; he’s just glad to have a postage-stamp-sized space of his own.
Here’s a peek at how things look so far. We put the boys’ bunk bed in the middle of the room so each boy has his own floor space on either side of the bunk. By chopping the room in half like this, the older one can stay up late without disturbing the younger, and both have a place to change privately without the door being shut. It’s tricky having a thirteen-year-old and a seven-year-old in the same room.
My daughter has dreams of unicorn curtains and flower murals, fluffy rugs and color-coordinated bedspreads. But one thing at a time. Today, I’m pleased to say the living room is clear of children’s furniture, and we now have space for the kids’ homeschooling stuff. Thanks for reading!
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Delightful reading, i can easily relate. I wholeheartedly agree with your approach to rearing children. I call it the ‘Mid-western farm-ranch’ approach to child rearing. It has almost always produced self-sufficient, resourceful, leaders with a faith in which God and daily life merge beautifully.
I love this! Thanks for sharing!