The Someday Rooms

by Beth Alexander Walsh

For several years they were a blank canvas. Two rooms of unpainted plaster walls and plywood flooring along with a small bath missing all its fixtures. These were the someday rooms. The rooms that would be finished as soon as the rest of the house was finished. No small task given that the job fell to my husband after work and on weekends.

When I got pregnant with our first child, our someday rooms were still on the back burner. Installing stair railings and a kitchen floor made much more sense and we already had a not-quite finished room close to our bedroom that was perfectly fine for our newborn. She was unaware of the lack of décor. When our daughter turned six months old, I found out I was expecting again. Our someday had a timetable; nine months.

The walls were painted and a bathtub installed to bathe small children. The carpet was laid a few weeks before my due date. My husband created built in desks and shelved alcoves in each room for books to be collected and homework to be done someday in the future. Before the cribs were moved into each room, I put giant Sesame Street stickers on my one-year old’s wall along with a giant border strip of the alphabet, while her newborn sister received Muppet Babies on her wall. The girls enjoyed their solitary space until baby brother was born. Bunk beds were set up for the girls and our son enjoyed his bedroom in which all things Toy Story ruled.

When the girls were preteen we became acutely aware that they would each need their own space if we were all to survive their teen years. Our basement, which was earmarked to someday become a recreation room with a bar and sauna, was framed for a bedroom and bath for our first born. She loved having her own floor away from siblings and annoying parents.  When the girls left for college, I would occasionally go and sit in their rooms; seemingly in suspended animation waiting for their occupant to return. When our oldest moved to China, our now teenage son wasted no time in moving his belongings to the basement, effectively putting two floors of distance between us and him.

For the first time in twenty-five years we had an empty room that would someday become a guest room, and I got to remake that room to suit me. The alcove became a walk-in closet and the wall color and bedding were of my choosing. A painting that I had purchased years ago came out of storage and a beautiful bureau built by my husband now had a home devoid of nail polish and the drinking glasses of the former residents. The room was immaculate and ready for guests.

Recently my oldest stayed with us for a few weeks while she was transitioning from the west coast to the east coast. In less than twenty-four hours there were clothes on the floor and a perpetually unmade bed reminiscent of the last time she stayed with us. The clutter finally left with her move to New York and the room restored to its pristine state but I hope that someday she will soon be back. I think I prefer that lived in look.