Ideas for use of DS's bedroom.

I might get a lodger in the future, but not just yet. I'm doing a Greta Garbo, "I want to be alone"

Ha, hollow laughter, my spare room has been turned into a walk in wardrobe with the added extra of another pantry/food store. All my DH's doing. Let's home we don't have any surprise overnight guests!

Hope (silly hudl)

Mine is the spare bedroom for visiting family I have my PC in there but to honest I barely us it anymore nowadays so it will probably be consigned to the loft and the room purely for visitors or overnights for the grandchildren.

If you DID turn it into a sauna , as mentioned in your OP, where would your son sleep when he came home in the holidays?

Isn't it still his room till he finishes university?

Ruby bet it will still be full of DS stuff that he doesn't take with him.

In September go and sit in room (with window open there will still be the aroma of teenage boy).
You might then be able to feel what or how you would like to use the room In the future.

My experience of kids at uni is they come and go frequently and sometimes bring a mate home to stay. The summer holiday is quite long - best part of three months. Ours have been fortunate enough to get summer jobs to boost their funds( or reduce the overdraught!)

apparently ours are still 'their bedrooms'

A sauna or walk-in wardrobe sounds good.

It's a huge bedroom, plenty big enough to keep his things in (along with a double bed) and put in a table to do sewing on or/and an at home sauna. That's the beauty of social housing, large rooms, new kitchens and bathrooms and big gardens.

I'm not going to not use it, that would be a waste of space while he is not here. Then he can use the sauna too when he is back. If any friends come back with him, then they will either sleep on the blow up mattress his mates sleep on now or I will get a sofa bed for them. Still plenty of room. I just don't know if he will like the new wallpaper of red roses!

Don't get one of those cheap indoor ready built made in China saunas. One of my neighbours bought one, they cost a fortune to run, never got hot enough. Whole house got condensation, it got covered in mould, and after a couple of uses just sat there looking hideous. A sewing table is a great idea and you get much more done if you can leave all your stuff out and don't have to keep putting it away. A tv or radio in there while you're working makes it a pleasure to escape to.

Ruby I'd caution against regular saunas - do check with your cardiologist.

Also, you have enough trouble with him at times as it is. He is only 18 and going to feel a little pushed-out and unloved if you put his room to another use. You don't really need a craft room do you, and certainly not a sauna!

Well, I can see the point of not leaving the room as it is and making some use of it while he's away.

Perhaps for the first year or so he will keep coming home, but after that - well, if he's like mine he will be saying that he's off travelling in the holidays, working overseas or by the coast and he may manage to pop home for a weekend or so to see his Mum! But - he will still want to use his room to store everything ruby , possibly for years!

as for a sauna, would it be better to go for the occasional one at the local leisure centre (ask the GP first?) rather than mess up your house? Let someone else do the cleaning.

A sewing/craft/computer table sounds good.

I have three rooms which have all evolved into junk collections since the boys left home. The eldest, who is married and lives in the US, has left some stuff in boxes, but I made him promise to throw everything away that he really wouldn't need again. I wasn't going to provide storage for five years for something if he was only going to come back and chuck it away.

Middle one has completely cleared his room and that is a useful spare room, but I keep the ironing in there. Youngest still hasn't really done his room out at all, although I ask him to every time he comes home. He is still at university, so I wouldn't want him to think we were chucking him out.

To answer the original question - you could turn your "spare" room into a gym, a private cinema, or a reading room, or a library. The most likely is ironing and sewing, though.

I am in the process of gathering all the bedlinen, bedding and towels together to keep in one single place all together in one of their wardrobes, but much sorting will still be necessary.

And I agree with what others have said. If he's a Uni, he's not really left home. That is surely not until they finally move in with a girlfriend or start a family.

Train sets!

You could start in one corner, so he doesn't feel pushed out (in fact it could be his Christmas present) and then as he starts to come home less and less, you could take over the whole room with track, stations, mountains and valleys, tunnels....think what fun it would be to have your own private signaling box and points, to arrange your own train timetables and train crashes. You can dress up, buy an engine driver's hat and a whistle.

You could even splash out on a new anorak and go train spotting. there are even Clubs you can join.

Solved. Simples.

Ooh goodie! Can I come and play? I love trains!

You can be the Station Master

With a red flag.

I don't think a sauna is a good idea. It's the steaminess inside a house which would worry me. I can almost see the mould growing as I type.

A "sewing" room, or a jigsaw puzzle room whatever, would be a good idea just somewhere you can leave you work in progess stuff lying about.

Ours has a comfy chair, a cupboard that takes all our home admin stuff, books, a desk/table, a computer I can watch tv on and listen to music - along with the wardrobes and a bed for guests. It works and I love it, always quiet and peaceful in there. If not always tidy . When our son went to Uni it was important to him that his room remained 'his', he seemed to be at home as much as he was away. It sounds as if your son's room is big enough for some space for you Ruby without him feeling pushed out, think I'd worry about a sauna but using space for your hobbies feels good.

When we moved, we had a room going spare and I had all sorts of plans for it; somewhere to paint, somewhere to peg rugs, somewhere to tie flies..... Never happened. I got overtaken and evicted by "stuff". Whatever you decide to do, Ruby I hope it makes you happy ? and that you DS enjoys his university course. I'm now off to buy a Station Master's hat!?

I've still got DH's train set. I keep mentioning oxfam are good at selling old train sets when he accuses me of hoarding. The children's rooms are now refurbished as the grandchildren's rooms and I've bought single beds with pullout beds underneath. One also has a bed settee in it and my sewing room also has a bed settee as does the study so I have been able to put up a crowd of students when they brought friends back. We also had a tent. So glad those days are over.