We actually have four rooms that you might call bedrooms. Two of them function as such (master and guest room) and the other two have become a TV room and a computer room, respectively. Both of them have couches and neither have beds. It's your home; the house police will not be coming by to check on how you're using your rooms. Have fun with your rooms!

Nooooooo you can adapt the rooms to whatever you like. I only use one bedroom, the others are my studio and my husband's hobby room. Just enjoy the space you live in, it doesn't matter what others do.

Eaglemom, congratulations on deciding to start! We'll be with you all the way.

By all means arrange your home to serve and please you and your family. I have a sewing room, an office, and a parrot room from what should be three "spare" bedrooms, and also my master bedroom making four.

Paint the walls whatever colors make you smile. Try decorating with colors you look good wearing, especially ones that reflect well on your skin; then you will look pretty in your own house. Have you looked through the room threads in our gallery for inspiration? It's like a huge stack of decorating magazines without pages of ads.

Don't be afraid to experiment to find what's perfect for you. Paint is only paint... not that expensive and I think fun to do because the results are so fantastic. Except two stories up on a ladder. Paint "resale neutral" in those places so you won't have to do it again. But a bedroom? You can change the color as often as you like until you find the best for you. It's only paint! Remember, even the pros have problems with picking out just the right wall colors.

Please yourself and hug your friend and say thanks, but no thanks. She can paint her own house white with colored accessories. If it's not your thing, don't get talked into it. This is Eaglemom's house and it has to have Eaglemom's personality in it. Above all, please yourself and your DH and you can't go wrong.

Oh I'm so excited to begin. We're making a quick weekend trip to surprise my mom for her 80th birthday. I'll be thinking about how best to do this while in the car.

We have a "study" where the computer lives and numerous book shelves. What I'm having storage issues with are simply papers that one needs to keep. I'm thinking nice nice file cabinet (s) and something else! Lol, at least thats a beginning. The study needs to be done also but I want to save that for last - it will wear me out! Thanks guys - love the encouragement and idea's.

I had a friend who always tried to get me to buy things that were her style not mine. At first I was pretty polite about it but when I realized that she would not change, I stopped shopping with her for house items as well as not talking decor. Saved our friendship!

For your computer room/office, stop by Barnes & Noble and look through the decorating books that are specifically about home offices. You'll get a lot of good ideas.
And be sure to give yourself a big enough work surface, excellent task lighting, a really good chair, and the storage that is right for YOU, and what you need to put away.
Try to stay away from storage that is open. It's hard to feel serene in a workspace that has everything in sight, I think.
I once re-jiggered an old armoire into an office cabinet in an apartment by putting attractive file boxes in the bottom with one fixed shelf above them, a stack of shelves in one side of the top for three-ring binders and cardboard mailing boxes to serve as project and reference storage, and a hanging sweater thing (the kind that attaches to a closet rod with velcro) with shallow baskets in its compartments for supplies. I put a whiteboard inside one door, and a piece of sheet metal covered in linen on the other for magnets. Looked good and worked really well.