“Dad, will you knock down the wall between our rooms?” one of my girls asked.
Don’t kids usually want their own rooms?
I guess I have the opposite problem with my two teenage girls. They want to share the same room!
It’s my friend Anita and Laura’s fault. Anita and Laura are two sisters who go to my church, now grown up with families of their own. When they were kids, their parents made them share a room. Their parents’ logic was this: Someday you’ll have to share a room with a husband, so you’d better start learning to get along with someone right now.
Now, 25 years later, Anita and Laura have the closest relationship I’ve ever witnessed from two siblings.
So they passed the legacy on. Laura’s two boys share a room, and Anita’s three girls share one room! Not for a lack of space in their houses. They actually have big houses. But they want their kids to be close like Anita and Laura were as kids.
And they are. They’re amazing kids.
So both of my girls asked me, “Dad, can we bust down the wall between our rooms and share?”
I laughed at first. But then we started to dialogue a little about it. “Why not?” I said.
The wall was partially a load-bearing wall, which basically meant a lot of work. So I jested, “How about a big hobbit hole?”
What started as a joke has become a reality. My dad and my friend Steve helped me frame it and add some flexible Masonite to make it round. A little mud (okay… a lot of mud) and some paint . . . beautiful!
We now have bunk beds in one room and beanbags and a fuzzy carpet in the other.
Does it work?
There’s nothing magical about bunk beds and demolition. It’s the attitude behind it. Our family is striving to “be close.” My girls want to be close.
Yes, they still drive each other nuts at times. But I’m amazed how much they have talked, joked and played together since I cut a big hole in my wall.
Question:
Have you tried something “creative” to try to get your teen girls closer to each other?
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