My 17 y.o. DD has a WIC and my 15 y.o. DS has a reach in with bifold doors. I dearly wish we had room for a WIC for DS. His closet was set up with an Elfa system about 5 years ago, and we set up the rods and shelves to fit his hanging shirts, sweatshirts, and pants, and drawers for socks etc. Well, I recently took out and rehung everything, because he's now 6'5" (and growing) and none of the hanging clothes fit any more. Luckily, the Elfa components are easy to shift around. The bifold doors are a pain and regular doors would take up too much room. His closet is always spilling over into his room. DD is not an organized person, but at least she can throw stuff into her closet and her room stays neat. All her clothes are in the WIC so we don't need a dresser in her room. DS has one dresser and I'm going to order another one because he just doesn't have enough space for his stuff. And we're good about clearing out and donating things he has outgrown or doesn't want anymore; it's just that they get big and their clothes get bigger and they need more clothes. (On game days in middle school and high school the players wear button down shirts, dress pants and ties, so they need a fair amount of nice stuff in addition to their everyday stuff.) I applaud your planning efforts! I feel overrun with shoes. There are only the 3 of us (DH passed away last year) but we're a multi-sport family and if you counted our shoes you'd think there were 20 of us! Don't know your climate but when you do your planning take into account the size and height of rain and snow boots, as well as sports shoes. We have had soccer, football, basketball, baseball, golf, tennis, hiking and running shoes all in the mudroom at the same time, along with the shoes we actually wear just for regular use and the pads for football and other sports equipment. I can't imagine keeping all my work/dressy shoes in the mudroom as well. There are some shoes you may only wear infrequently - think dress shoes that your kids only wear for holidays, graduation, highschool dances or other fancy occassions, and your dressy shoes. Are you sure you want all of those in your mudroom?

suero - that is a wonderful idea! Thanks! Amanda - I was so excited that I called DH at work and he he's all for helping to make it happen. We're going to do it for Christmas instead and some week this Summer when they're on vacation we're going to do it. I am so jazzed about this that I can't wait to actually talk to ex-SIL about it and recruit her help. I NEVER come up w/ good gift ideas for my in-laws (not that they care - in a good way). Many yrs. ago I acquired an Industrial Fan that I thought was cool looking. It blows so hard I couldn't use it in the house. Socks would blow across the room. Now I know what fate had in store for it (and me) when I picked it up!

"Serenity, are you really suggesting that if the parents can't afford a separate bedroom for each child, that they shouldn't have another child? that a separate bedroom is a 'birthright' of sorts?" I guess, in a nutshell, what I'm getting at is that EQUALITY and FAIRNESS is a birthright, yes. Every kid feeling equally a part of the family and their needs considered equally is a birthright, yes. If *every kid* has to share rooms or to go without privacy for the entirety of their time with their siblings and parents, then that's just as equal and fair as if every kid DOES have privacy for the entirety of their time with their family. But these in-between "some have privacy and some don't" situations are less than ideal and ripe for conflict, especially in a blended family. It's often unavoidable, but it's certainly not ideal. It's one thing for SS and BS to have to share a room because neither can share with the older, female daughter. But there IS an extra room, and now the reason becomes not only that they can't share with a girl, and she as the oldest has 'seniority' and 'older' lifestyle/mentality that merits privacy... but now a little baby who has no 'seniority' or even mental capacity to distinguish Self from Other from floating blobs of color swirling around his/her little head suddenly outranks the boys in terms of privacy needs. And not just because of crying noise and such, but the main problem is that presumably the baby is going to KEEP the private room indefinitely. So we will have the boys outranked by not only the older girl, but also by their younger sibling. If the baby is a girl, that's one thing. But if it's a boy they will wonder why the younger one gets a luxury the older two boys don't have. SS especially will wonder this because BS at least has his privacy and his own space the majority of the time, only having to share it with SS 4 nights a month. SS always has to share, never gets the feeling of having his own space. Or worse: he had it for a little while, but nope, no more. Now there's going to be someone else who's apparently more important, and now there will be no room for him to have his own 'place' so he will just have to be shoved in somewhere and begrudgingly tolerated by the brother whose room he invades a few nights a month. The point is that no kid should have to feel like just because they are the STEP (or the bio) that they don't merit the same consideration of space, privacy and just a 'place' (literally) in the household as any and all other kids in the family. There is already so much loaded potential for someone to feel short-changed, or 'out-ranked', that yes, I think it's best to avoid risking anyone feeling that way if at all possible. And again, this is all based on the condition of the family having the means and how they choose to prioritize their expenses. A *TRULY* struggling family, especially in this current economic situation, will not be able to move to another, bigger house tomorrow or next week or perhaps ever. (But they also probably wouldn't be purposely planning on having another mouth to feed.) There's perceived limitations and then there's REAL limitations. There's not thinking you have enough space or means, and then there's REALLY not having enough space or means. The differences really do matter, but even regardless of actual means, I would say (along the lines of the thread Doodle just brought up) that if you can't (or won't) afford extra kids and the costs/adjustments of treating all your kids fairly and providing them each with space, privacy and making sure they all feel equally part of the family and their needs equally provided for, then you really shouldn't have extra kids. Or at least you shouldn't be PLANNING for them (I'm a big fan of birth control) unless/until you know that you can treat them all fairly with a minimum of stress and conflict. The further you have to (or perceive you have to) stretch a limited amount of resources, the more potential for conflicts. Which a blended family already inherently has enough of. When you knowingly, deliberately set up a situation in which resources will not be allocated evenly and therefore somebody has to lose out, you are knowingly setting up everyone for a conflict and for somebody to feel short-changed and like the outsider. Why would somebody knowingly do that, presuming they have the choice? But if you know you can provide each child with their own room, then that conflict at least is nonexistent and no one has to feel like the outsider. Creating and/or buying space for every kid to have some privacy in the house is the first decision/sacrifice of many, a relatively simple first step considering all the other many expenses and adjustments you will be taking on (and making everyone else take on) for each new kid you decide to have. That's why I say it's a good guideline because it's practical as well as symbolic. If you can't make THAT situation work fairly for everyone, then you're going to have trouble keeping things flexible, workable and equitable in the ever-expanding blending family in the future. That's all I'm saying... So I guess another relevant question here would be: "is an entire private bedroom for a newborn baby a birthright?"

I shared a room with my sister from the time she was 6 months old until I was in high school. I think the first thing to do is determine what you want the girls to do in their room. Sleep, obviously. But what else? Will this be their main play area, or just a place for toy storage? Do they need a place to color and do crafts, which could turn into a homework spot in a few years? Do you need to store all their clothing in their room, or is there space for out of season clothing elsewhere? Where will you store the older kid's outgrown clothes until her younger sister is big enough to wear them? Do they need a little, quiet reading nook, or a noisy play space (with the baby coming, it might work to have a shut door between the kids during nap time)?What toys need to be stored in the room? Big ones that need floor space? Smaller ones that can go on shelves? Will you need bins or boxes for things that have multiply parts? For the clothes, I'd more or less divide the closet in half, and store each child's clothing separate from the other. If you have a central column of drawers, the top half goes to one and the bottom half to the other. You might want to have things as low as possible so that the 4 year old, at least, could put her own things away, and get dressed by herself. And this might not work for your circumstances, but I have to share what my sister-in-law did with three kids under 5. She took a large, walk-in closet that was near the laundry room and put all the kids' clothes in it. The kids come downstairs in their pajamas in the morning, get dressed in the closet, and at night, they get changed into their PJs in the closet. It's just a few steps to the laundry room and the hamper. And when she has a load of clean clothes to put away, she just walks to the closet and stands in one place and puts it all away. There's a combination of hanging rods, shelves and those plastic drawer units (for underwear and socks). The kids know exactly where their clothes go. The only laundry that gets carried up and down stairs is the parents' and sheets and towels. The kids' bedroom closets get used for storing all their sheets and blankets and their toys.