Chet's room has not been done over since he moved into this room at 17. He is 33. The wall paper was curling, the trim paint was grungy and the room was chock full of stuff he did not use any more (not to mention the aforementionedoh so important receipts that were literally filling every.single.drawer. of his six drawer dresser.
Like all things for Chet I know this would be hard for him. Change is evil to him. Even if it winds up something that he likes in the end, the process is agonizing to him. So I tried to make this as painfree as possible by having him help me sort things for 15 minutes at a time. Literally 15 minutes, during which time I would channel my inner Kon Mari and ask him "does this give you joy?" as I held up the receipts. Initially there was a lot of bluster about how important they were. I would ask him to share with me what was important about them (all using the same low key voice) and eventually he would say he thought he needed them.) Usually at that point I could suggest that if he did not *know* he needed it, then it would likely be safe to recycle it. The first drawer there was lots of yelling on his part. The second drawer there was some yelling and some tears of frustration. By drawer 3 he was beginning to embrace the declutter. By drawer 6 he actually laughed about some of the things he had felt were so important to keep.
Of course if it was only the desk it would have been easy. But I also had to convince him that the pile of old underwear in the bottom of his closet did NOT need to be saved and mended for future use. Trust me, there are street people whose undies had more fabric left to them than those did! He has good clothes, he just genuinely believes he has to fix mend and staple together everything and keep using it.
I had him help me box his actual belongings and we stored them in my room. We did some editing aas we went. With some discussion he decided that the Harry Potter mylar baloon from his 13th birthday was no longer necessary to keep. And there were other edits of a similar nature. With the room emptied of all but a bed, and a dresser it was so much bigger feeling. I think that might have actually been the sea change moment for him, though I would dearly love to say that it was all my gentle and consistant parenting through this process.
He LOVED how big his room felt. Also as the walls had to be stripped of all the old paper, mudded primed, and the trim painted and a small ceiling repair done, it was sort of empty for a while. I think I hit the autism lottery for that as it gave him time to really get used to it feeling more open and airy.
The top of his walls are painted a dusky rose that he chose. Chet loves pink and this is a pretty shade. The panelling on the bottom is painted a medium gray. He likes to make cards and I helped him organize all those supplies (previously hidden under all the receipts) into clear bins and they fit on a shelf in his closet. We painted a cabinet to coordinate and put a cork board on one side so he can put receipts there for the short time and then because they are visible, I'll see them and can help him edit more regularly.
He has a collection of colored mini carabiners that he wanted to make jewelry out of. That didn't work when he tried it but he wanted to keep the carabiners. My talented wife figured out how to use them to hold up a curtain on one of his windows. He got new curtains, we put new wood cladding on his two stairs in his room and convinced him he only needed one set of shelves. We gave away the desk as it really would have just become a catch all of horrors again and I could not face that. So using how much he loved the open feeling we got him to agree to getting rid of that and putting a small desk with only one drawer in his room to mount his TV on. He also got a cute little leather chair to sit in and new mini lights (those ones on wires that hte kids love) to put around his room.
He helped put the art work back in his room but I guided him a bit so that things were not just shoved every which way. There is more of a feeling of calmness with it like this and I have honestly seen him act more calmly overall since the re-do.
I can tell he loves his space. I felt bad at times putting him through the stress of the renovation. And sometimes, truthfully I felt bad putting myself through it. It can feel a little thankless when you are trying to do something nice and someone is acting like you are torturing them. But at the end of the
day, he survived, and he is proud of the new look and his space.
