Are They Gone Yet?

Elizabeth Birk of Clifton also decided to leave the bedrooms of daughters Michelle and Kristin basically untouched. The rooms are "relaxation sanctuaries" for them when they come home from James Madison University. "My daughter Michelle, who is now in graduate school, immensely likes coming home and spending quiet time in her room. Her room remains untouched and as she left it," says Birk, assistant to the managing partner at law firm Winston & Strawn in Washington.

Ellen Weiss, whose daughter Allie just enrolled at Connecticut College in New London, says the family dreaded Allie's departure from their Potomac home all summer. And although the pets have ruined the rug, the Ikea bureaus are perilously overstuffed, and the whole place is a jumble of CDs, books, jewelry and cosmetics, they don't intend to change a thing.

It's a "cryogenic problem," says Weiss: "It will have to be like a museum of nastiness: It smells bad and has decrepit broken furniture. . . . You can't freeze the room because it's really pretty awful the way it is. But you can't change it too dramatically, either; it would be too upsetting."

For Kristi Hoerauf of St. Leonard, Md., sending daughter Lauren off to Towson University brought no plans to change anything in the freshman's green bedroom filled with childhood mementos and photographs. Kristi Hoerauf grew up in a military family that moved constantly. "I wondered what it would be like to have just one room and live in one home and have a place you really belonged. I wanted that for my children." She and her husband, Robert, a dentist, wanted Lauren to be able to hang out in her room with friends from Patuxent High School during school vacations.

But some parents are not about to keep hands off crammed closets and taped-up Kiss posters.

"I had one client who turned her daughter's bedroom into a meditation space," says Lisa Bartolomei, a Washington designer and owner of Room Doctors. The client boxed her daughter's belongings, stashed them in the attic and bought a new sofa bed. She painted the room pumpkin, and added crystals and candles. "Her daughter was having fun at college and she didn't care," says Bartolomei.

Chevy Chase designer Carolyn Wilson of Design in a Day has no problem urging clients to lay claim to college-age children's bedrooms if they need the space. But her advice often is ignored. "These darn kids just keep coming back," laughs Wilson, mother of two. "Kids love coming home because they have their own beautiful room, somebody to do their laundry and there is always food. They are so spoiled."

Professional organizer Hemphill, whose firm, Hemphill Productivity Institute, is based in North Carolina, says it is rude to dismantle a child's room without communicating with them, but she urges parents to face the fact that their children are adults.

"Part of growing up and going to school is that children develop lives of their own," says Hemphill, co-author with Maggie Bedrosian of "Love It or Lose It: Living Clutter Free Forever." She suggests turning a bedroom into a family space where the college student can hang out with friends when home on vacation.

Meanwhile, Carolyn Wilson's daughter Elizabeth has moved home after graduating from the University of Montana. She plans to stay six months to a year, but not in her childhood bedroom on the third floor. That's been taken over by her younger brother. She and her Labrador are happily ensconced in the Wilson guest room.