I've now made up a folder with all the renovations that need to be done, the extra bits of landscaping I still have to do and the furnishings I want to replace.  The kids new beds are going to be foam mattresses on the floor as I am sick of them busting the beds by using them as a trampoline.....that is the reason we bought a real trampoline...grrrrr.  Actually, Cassidy is the only one who still has a bed in great condition cos she doesn't bounce on the beds.  Sometimes I wonder why kids respect other houses but not their own.

you know what i would do.

Take out all the furniture out of there room and let them sleep on the floor until they respect your house.  Even the drawers would go.  There clothes would be on the floor at that would be that.

Shit my 7 year old knows not to jump on the bed and that he can jump outside.

Personally, I would get Cassidy the lovely flash new bed.  One of the others (which ever I deemed to deserve it) would get her hand off and the other 2 would get reasonable, secondhand stuff.  Not great like Cassidy's but good enough.  That shows Cassidy that you appreciate her being careful with her stuff, and the others that they can't expect to be rewarded for trashing their beds and therefore your wallets.

 

If they then choose to trash the 'new' bed - so be it - they have to sleep in it.

 

 

 

 

goh id love to have a couch!  weve changed a 3 room house into a 4 room one so  no sitting room, the kitchin doubles as a dineing room  tvs in mums room the "family computer" which ive completly rebuilt is in my room  utter chaos i tell ya!

Wgtn, I completely know where you are coming from.  I walked in to Hannah's room yesterday to see her and her friends have grafitti'd the walls and the ceiling.  I just about cried.  Yes I can nut off at her, but she keeps saying she is going to redecorate her room.  But she really doesn't care.  She has no illness, conditions or behaviour issues to explain her lack of respect for this house.  She is just plain selfish.

 

I look around our house - and same as you, the best piece of furniture is the rimu slat bed I bought before I even met Andy.  The wallpaper is stained and old, the carpet is marked.  The drawers in our bedroom are the ones I've had since I was a kid.  The cot and the kids' bunk beds, the lounge suite and even the dining room chairs are all secondhand.

 

But I have declared that I will not spend a single cent on doing the inside of the house up until certain respect is paid to our house by a certain teenager (or until she moves out).  The little ones do less damage than what she does.  I've invested money on an infinity system and an HRV.  OK, cosmetically they add nothing to the house, but I know they are there and that I've invested into the capital value of the house.

 

Hannah may bum out when her friends come around because of the antiquated furntiure and interior but I remind her what I have vowed.  And if she is embarrased about our house - she's only go her self to blame. 

 

I have gotten over caring what our house looks like.  It is tidy, it is clean.  But yes it will be good when Mr B finishes painting the outside of the house and replacing some rotten weatherboards.

My girls have used vivid on their mirror.  I don't think either one has the gumption to draw on the walls and ceiling, let along the rest of the furniture - well, I've never caught them bar the one time that Lauren wrote in tiny letters at the bottom of each door what was behind the door.  "mums room", "Shauns room" etc etc etc.  I roared when I saw it and within a few minutes she was scrubbing it off with jif.  It comes off with jif and lots and lots of elbow grease. 

 

Thomas did the haka when he saw the mirror - but I said it was fine because it washes right off with no effort.  They clean it periodically and then start again.  It's song lyrics, poems and quotes.  It is a pain to try and actually see yourself in the mirror, but there is one in the hallway and one in the bathroom so really not a lot of need for their one.   

 

They also have pieces of paper blue tacked to the wardrobe door with more song lyrics.  These ar the more intense songs and when I saw them I baulked.  But they do need somewhere to express their anger and pain and better on that where I can monitor them than cutting or something horrible.

 

I've thought about getting a big roll of that white fish and chip paper so they can bluetack a whole sheet to the door at once.  But I've never got around to it.

 

I was wondering if you gave her somewhere where she could be delinquent, if you could get her to repair the other damage?  Like say to her "Here is some art paper, blue tac, vivids and your mirror, you can do what you like with those but here is 2 cans of undercoat and one top - fix the rest of it".   I'm sort of figuring that vivid on walls is going to need 2 coats of undercoat to keep it down.

 

On other matters, I work with a woman who lives in Styx Mill.  Now Styx Mill is a gated community with it's own Country Club.  Vanessa is in her mid thirties and a lovely woman.  But she said to me that while the house is lovely to look at outside I wouldn't want to visit.  She freely admits to being the housekeeper from hell.  She cleans the loos once a month and god help anyone who dirties them in between.  Her small son rubbed vegetable soup through the lounge suite and carpet.  It vacuumed up once it went crunch but you can still see the stain.  She just doesn't do housework.  Partly because she was raised in SA with servants, partly because she couldn't give a rats arse.  I'm not going to visit lol.  Much as I like Vanessa, I couldn't cope  with being in a $800,000 house that is treated like a pig sty.  I can't cope with being in a normal house that is filthy.   Messy is one thing.  Dirty is a whole different level.

Started stripping wallpaper from the girls room yesterday.  Took 5 hours to do two-thirds of the room.  Have done a bit more this morning but rest will have to wait for Patrick to do as I am too short to reach right up the top.....high pitched ceiling with dormer windows.  I am writing down how long it is taking us to do each day and then charging it at a labourer's cost so the kids end up seeing exactly how much the whole redecoration of the house is going to cost us.  Hopefully, that will stop them from damaging the property again.

Were we weird teenagers? The worst thing I ever did to my room as a teen was keep it in a horrible mess and use blue tack to stick physics and chemistry formulas all over the door. All my parents did to tart up the room when they sold the house 10 years after I had left home was replace the badly faded curtains, they were faded because you could see my room from the dining room so I used to hide the mess by not opened that set of curtains.

 

Only Arthur has an innersprung mattress and that is old and on a solid divan base. Not much bounce potential. The girls have foam mattresses on battered wooden slat bunks. Until last year Becky was still using Phil's old chest of drawers, vintage 1977 chipboard which I had pulled the vinal veneer off and painted 10 years ago. The got "new" pine ones last year off trademe that aren't too badly scratched but I notice that I will have to do some sticker removal. Good old desolvit to the rescue.

when Blake was 2 he got hold of a perment marker and drew(sp) on his walls.  Had to repaint the whole room.  It was really funny cos he did the most purfect B  i have ever seem him do. 

Since them neither of the kids had broken anything in the house.  They know there ass is grass if they do.

All our furniture is second hand except white ware.  Am not buying good stuff until they hit there teens.  I know they are good with stuff buy they still roll over the lounge etc so will wait. 

To be honest I still don't know what i want so i don't mind waiting.

Mum got all the good stuff after I moved out.

 

I was like "Dammit - I'm moving back just to play with it".

 

Actually, considering I was the one that didn't break things, take and sell things, or otherwise trash their house I think I will be morally offended now.  *Huff*

I am not trying to be a goddie goddie here but I would never in a million years rune any of my parents stuff.  I was taught to respect them and there stuff.

I know what you mean k1w1...cos we were the same.  Kids don't seem to listen nowdays.  Anyway, finished wallpaper stripping last night.....whoever invented washable wallpaper should be shot as it is a right bastard to get off.  Now I've got to sandpaper the walls, fill any holes, sandpaper the filler, apply seal to the walls then paint.  The girls room is being done in a lovely light lavender colour.

My parents won the Golden Kiwi when I was young, so we did have really nice furniture.  I think the worst I did was a little bit of drawing on the wallpaper in my room.  Of course the teenage years, when mum and dad sold the house - my wall was covered in blutack marks and hundreds of tiny holes from all the drawing pins I used to stick up my posters.

 

I do remember that one time after having an argument with mum, one of my brother's punched a hole in the wall.  Mum left it there to remind him of what he had done.  It only got patched up when the house was put on the market.  The same brother also tried to set fire to the laundry... the scorch marks on one of the walls was left there too as a reminder.

lol A few years after we got married Phil had a phone call from his father. His father was finally redecorating the room Phil and his brother used to share and found a big hole hidden under a home made sign above the light switch. It was a legecy of a fight they had when 10 years earlier. They had concealed it with a reminder to turn off the light!

Friends come to see YOU, not your furnishings.

If your house is friendly and welcoming, no-one will even see the imperfections that you know are there.

 

Really good news about Cassidy