It was several months in the planning but last weekend finally saw Operation ‘Bedroom Move’ put into motion.

Our boys have been sharing one of our smaller bedrooms for about three years now, and with Toby on the verge of needing to swap his toddler bed for a full-sized one a migration to a larger room has been on the cards for some time.

As ever in our household, it has taken the best part of a year and much chivvying from Heather for this to actually happen. Moving the boys has required us (by which I mean Heather) to sell/Freecycle/bin a large amount of the detritus that inevitably builds up in a family home: children’s clothes and toys, books, redundant electronic equipment (cathode ray TVs, remember them?) and so on. The boys wanted a bunk bed, so we (by which I mean Heather) had to order one. New bedding, new paint, new stuff (go on, you’ll never guess who had to order them). All that jazz.

Walls were repainted between Christmas and New Year (that was me – I did something!) and the carpet deep-cleaned. And so, on Saturday morning, with excitement mounting to near-fever pitch, the migration process began. Bookcases and toy chests were moved, with the boys even approaching the chore of dusting with gusto.

And on Sunday we moved their beds which, in the case of Isaac, meant dismantling and reassembling his mid-sleeper so it would fit through the doors. (By the way, isn’t the Allen key the most infuriating tool known to man?)

We’re not finished yet – the bunk bed doesn’t arrive until next week and there’s still a large pile of flat-pack furniture lurking in a dark corner ready for me to swear at as I try to assemble it – but we did enough over the course of the weekend to allow the boys to sleep there on Sunday night with enough new bits and pieces to feel completely different to their old one.

Of course, there’s an ulterior motive. At the moment, our three kids’ toys and games are strewn across our playroom and living room. The boys’ new bedroom is significantly larger and gives them more storage space and usable floor area. Maybe, just maybe, enough of their stuff will now be brought upstairs, enough for us to reclaim our living room for use as, well, a proper living room rather than its current designation of ‘playroom extension’.

Whisper it quietly, but we may not be far away from implementing Operation ‘Living Room’. And that’s something I can definitely put some energy behind.