Musical Beds

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to change out a double-bed room to bunk beds and a nursery to a play room at the same time? Here's how it works.

First, you find bunk beds that don't cost you one of the children that will be sleeping in them. We got ours at an estate sale complete with mattresses, even though I said I wouldn't buy used mattresses because of the whole bed bug situation. I'm going to keep the jury out on that, because I don't want to jinx myself.

1. Dis-assemble and store the full-sized bed....and full-sized sheets...and full-sized bedspread, blankets, and mattress cover.

2. Assemble bunk beds. Purchase twin-sized bedding, which includes all the items listed above times two. Hint: you do not need to put both rails on the top bunk bed if it is pushed against the wall, because (A) it is redundant, and (B) it is a bitch to put sheets on. (I slept in the top bunk for an entire year of college and I know I did not have that much trouble putting sheets on it . Oh, because I apparently didn't worry about falling out in the middle of the night and cracking my head open.)

3. Purchase and assemble two dressers from IKEA because the previous furniture does not match the new beds.

4. Move dresser and vanity table from bedroom to nursery/playroom. Go through every frickin' toy known to man: Keep / Donate / Toss? Answer: 60% / 30% / 10%. Come close to doing yourself harm when you can't figure out where you are going to put it all and it isn't even Christmas yet.

5. Organize clothes to place in new dressers. Fill two bins of clothes for attic storage, bring the next bin of hand-me-downs in for little sister. While you're up there, re-organize the attic a little bit, you will have plenty of time to kill.

6. Take a break and assemble two dressers for your own room, so you can finally get the ten piles of clothes off the floor and actually give the appearance of being a grown-up.

7. Move the changing table from the nursery to the "master" bedroom to get the other five piles of clothes off the floor. Drop the cable box, so even though you finally can have the TV at a good angle to watch from bed, you will only be able to see things in black and white.

8. Move the crib into the middle of the playroom so you can organize around it, because taking it apart at this point is a sure sign that you're going to be pregnant next month.

9. Fill 4 nylon laundry bins with stuffed animals. Fill 1 big plastic container (the kind in which you used to place kegs of beer) with baby dolls. Fill another with dress-up/pretend play items. Determine how many pooh bears you can move to the "donate" pile or at least pass-off to the basement without a third-party noticing. Answer: None.

10. Determine you are, in fact, not pregnant and thus commission the dis-assembly of the crib to move to the attic. Store all nursery bedding and accessories.

11. Bring train table and rolling storage bins up from the basement to the playroom.

12. Remove all remnants of owning children from the living room by assigning toys to the playroom, bedroom, or basement. Okay, I haven't personally gotten this far yet. It's a stretch goal.

Did I mention that you should try to do all of this in one week while holding down full-time jobs outside the home? Because that is key.