Goodbye, Hello Kitty. Beat it, Backstreet Boys. ’N Sync, you’re out.
Soon after her daughter left for Florida State University several years ago, Dana Jones got busy planning what to do with the vacated bedroom. “When she left, it was ‘aha!’ ” Jones said. “Now I can do what I want to do.”
Three years ago, Forbes magazine named Atlanta to its list of “Top Towns For Empty Nesters,” and an Atlanta Development Authority study in 2006 predicted 90 percent of the metro region’s population growth would become households without children, including young singles and empty nesters. When it comes time for the latter group to reclaim rooms after kids leave for college, work or marriage, professional organizer Claire Kurtz recommends thinking about it early. Not that Kurtz, owner of The Well-Organized Woman in Midtown, advocates chucking all your kids’ belongings the day they leave, but strategizing now may prevent you from having to clear a mountain of “Harry Potter” and “Twilight” gear from your college graduate’s erstwhile room in a few years.
“Whether it’s going to be an office, or Zen meditation room or mini gym, have a plan,” Kurtz advised. “Decide how much of the kid’s stuff you want to hang onto.”
For Jones, who lives in Roswell, that decision was easy: none. While she has a portrait of her daughter Rasha Jones-Warren, now 27, hanging in what once was the younger woman’s bedroom, the cartoon cats and pop music posters have vanished, along with prom pictures, track meet trophies and other trappings of adolescence. An event and meetings planner who travels extensively, Jones turned her daughter’s former digs into a chic retreat modeled after her favorite hotel suites.
The walls are now a rich, earthy sage with plum lampshades offering a pop of color. A large mirror propped against the wall facing the bed makes the generous-sized room feel even larger. “I just pulled it together from what I’ve seen in hotels and on HGTV,” said Jones, who uses the room to welcome visiting relatives.
After college and a stint working abroad, her daughter has taken a job in Buckhead and is back home “for a hot minute,” Jones stressed with a laugh. “She really likes the grown-up feel of the room.” Some of Jones-Warren’s things are still in the house, but she isn’t staying in her former room while she bunks with Mom. She’s in a different guest bedroom, and not for long. Warns her mother: “Don’t get too comfortable.”
Given the parents’ weekend festivities many colleges and universities are holding this month, we asked Jones and a number of other metro Atlantans who have reclaimed their kids’ former rooms, to give you some inspiration when it comes time to feather your empty nest.
A private museum
Out with the old, in with the older. When Martha Jo Katz’s daughter moved out of their east Cobb County house, the transformation from bedroom to mini museum began. That was in the early 1990s. Katz isn’t done yet.
“Can you believe I have all this stuff?” she marveled as she entered what used to be daughter Roben Turry’s room. Katz has moved in her grandmother’s 1910 oak curio, and has it brimming with a multigenerational trove of mementos — from Katz’s baby booties and her mother’s play tea sets to trinkets Katz and her husband, Jerry, have picked up on recent trips.
Family photos previously on display throughout the house now are artfully arranged on the opposite wall. Front and center is the photo of Katz’s great grandmother, Martha Bank. (Perhaps you’ve heard of Martha’s son and Katz’s great-uncle, Joseph A. Bank?) Dresses Katz wore as an infant and her mother’s hand-tatted lace bonnets hang near the curio. Her grandmother’s cake plate has become the top for a small table next to the bed.
“I had all this stuff packed up in boxes. I wanted to look at it,” said Katz, a former model who retired last year from her job as director of social events at the InterContinental hotel in Buckhead. Transforming her empty nest into a family tableau has been a fun and meaningful hobby. “This is my way to show my children and grandchildren how to appreciate things that may not be worth a lot of money, but are nostalgic,” Katz said.
Man-cave rescue
Annie Spell’s husband is no longer a cave dweller. Daughter Rachel Hanna’s departure a couple of years ago meant Spell’s husband, David, could move his desk and his computer upstairs. The Creamsicle orange paint job Rachel demanded to go with her posters of Vin Diesel and Orlando Bloom are gone, replaced by shelves of books and DVDs against toasty pecan-colored walls.
Her parents haven’t removed all evidence that she once lived there, though. A paper butterfly she once made is tucked in the window sill, and the light switch plate still reflects Rachel’s lobbying efforts for a post-high school trip: “Sydney Australia” remains marked in her handwriting.
The new setup apparently agrees with David Spell, a Gwinnett County Police Department lieutenant who’s planning to retire this year. He’s already completed several books, including “Street Cop” (available at Amazon.com) and plans to pen more once he turns in his badge.
“It was nice to bring him up from the man cave,” Spell said. “I see my husband again.”
This safe haven remains
Milton and Clara Cobb of Conyers are brand-new empty nesters, with daughter Chelsea just starting her freshman year at Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, Tenn.
Milton is retired from the U.S. Postal Service and Clara works in downtown Atlanta for the Department of Health and Human Services. They’re enjoying what you might call a “re-newlywed” lifestyle, planning trips and theater outings.
We’re doing a lot more,” Clara Cobb said. “We’re more spontaneous.” For now Chelsea’s room remains untouched, although a lot neater than when the 18-year-old graduate of Greater Atlanta Adventist Academy lived there.
“She came home to visit and, oh my goodness, it looked like a tornado hit,” Milton Cobb said with a chuckle.
Eventually they may turn it into a guest room, but not anytime soon.
“That’s her safe haven,” Clara Cobb said. “She enjoys it.” Quipped Milton Cobb, “I hope she doesn’t enjoy it too much!”
Clara had the final word on the matter, noting that when she visits her mother in Columbus, she knows where she’ll stay. “I still have my room in my mama’s house.”
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