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Most decisions we have to make in our daily lives are, let's be honest, quite trivial and the decisions rather inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Should we see the new Avengers film, or that other one? Do we have beer or wine with dinner? Wait, what are we going to have for dinner?
But then there are certain decisions which, if you make the wrong choice, could have disastrous consequences. Should we move in together? Do I cut the green wire, or the blue wire? Well that last one was borrowed from my big book of movie clichés, but you get the picture.
My partner and I recently faced such a potentially life-changing decision in what to do with the spare room. You may chuckle, but this particular question was the cause of quite a few heated "discussions"! She bought her first home last year and we decided to take the plunge and move in together, which is where our spare room troubles started.
Spare room or storage room?
The property in question is a modest two bedroom flat in a converted Victorian semi, and whilst it isn't exactly small we don't have masses of space to play with. Neither of us realised how significant this fact was until we moved my stuff in. 18 years as a committed bachelor, combined with an inability to throw anything way, meant that I came with a serious amount of baggage. Literally!
Moving day was really exciting and significant for both of us and started full of excitement and joy. This slowly disappeared throughout the day as we spent the next 15 hour or so packing up and loading the moving van, to be replaced with misery, despair, and sheer exhaustion. So much so that when we got to our new home we were so fed up that we just dumped all my junk in the spare room, closed the door, and just forgot about it. In hindsight this would have been the perfect time to have arranged some temporary storage as the boxes reached from floor to ceiling, and wall to wall. We couldn't even get into the room.
It wasn't until a few months later (yes months!) that we decided to tackle the horror that we had dubbed the 'storage room'. Quite a lot of ideas went back and forth, along with a few raised voices and some choice expletives. But what to do with it?
Possible ideas
"We should turn it into a second bedroom, a comfortable place for friends to stay" (or one of us when the other's snoring is a bit too loud?) "It is a second bedroom after all."
"It's slightly too small to be a comfortable bedroom. How about a study?"
"Hmm!?"
"We could put a computer desk in the bay window, some bookshelves against the wall, filing cabinet in the corner. And how about some pot plants for a bit of colour?"
"Yeah, that's a nice idea…but where are people going to sleep?"
Ultimately the only limit on what to do with the room is your own imagination, oh and space of course. The two chief limiting factors are imagination and space. And cost. The three main limiting factors are imagination, space, and cost. We thought about turning it into a spare bedroom, a library, a games room (both real and virtual), even a storage room. Though this last one did seem like a bit of a waste of space. We even toyed with the idea of turning it into a walk-in wardrobe, racks for hanging clothes, cleverly constructed shelves to make the most of the space, a selection of different sized mirrors on various walls. Whilst this idea would have been amazing neither of us is exactly a fashionista so again it was vetoed.
On and on the debating went with each proceeding suggestion becoming more grandiose and soundly rejected.
"Gym?"
"No!"
"Sauna?"
"No."
"Walk-in aquarium?"
"No!"
