We have a small house and years ago enclosed the garage as a living space for my mother, so I could keep an eye on her after my father passed away. When my youngest started kindergarten a couple years later, my mother escaped back to the quiet sanctuary of her little mobile home in the woods (what retired person wants to live in the chaos of a family?). That extra space turned out to be a bonus room for us to spread out as our daughters grew and their interests expanded. It was my craft room, office and guest room for as long as they can remember.

Last fall, when my youngest daughter’s friend moved in with us for their last year of high school, it became the two girls’ shared room. In addition, my oldest daughter had just moved home after college didn’t work out. So we upended the house to swap the rooms around. I took my oldest daughter’s room for my multi-purpose office, my oldest moved into my youngest daughter’s room and the two high schoolers took over the bonus room.

For girls used to having a place of their own where they could have solitude, to suddenly having only a shared space, it was kind of a shock to their psyches. Let’s just say the honeymoon was over around about December. They got along fine, but the novelty of living with a close friend wore off.

Now that her friend has moved back in with her parents, we did another big room swap. My youngest has now come to appreciate her former little bedroom and decided she wanted it back. I laughed. Not that she couldn’t have her bedroom back after she negotiated the change with her sister, but when she was younger she complained about its diminutive size. She visited friends who lived in large houses in expansive neighborhoods with sidewalks, then would come home and extrapolate the advantages of having a large bedroom like ALL her friends had.

I’m not sure what it was she wanted us to do about it. Small house, small rooms. She was just lucky to have her own bedroom. My own “master” bedroom is only big enough to walk around the queen-sized bed. She suggested numerous times throughout her youth that we move her sister somewhere else, bust out the wall between their rooms, and make her one big bedroom. But now, after living in the spacious bonus room for 10 months, she longs for the coziness of her tiny bedroom. She feels more secure wrapped in the cocoon of her little room. Her sister was not sentimental about her childhood bedroom and opted for the studio apartment feel the bonus room had to offer. I’m relieved. I did not want to tear my office apart; in big part because I bought furniture specifically to fit in the room it’s in now. The desk is huge and heavy and I think if I told my husband we had to move it, even if only across the house, my marriage would be over.

It’s amazing what a taste of how the other side (those who have to share rooms) lives can make a teen see how fortunate she’s been. Now, safely ensconced in the room of her formative years, my youngest is fully appreciative of what she had all along.

The grass isn’t greener on the other side. It’s only greener where you water it the most – or over the septic tank. Sometimes it takes going to the dark side to come back into the light.

Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. You can read more of her writing and her daily blog on her website livingwithgleigh.com or on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh,” or twitter @livewithgleigh. Her column is available every week atmaplevalleyreporter.com under the Lifestyles section.