My parents moved right after I left home, so I’ve never even seen my old bedroom.
One room was made into a home office for my dad, the second (later years teenage room) was destroyed in a flood.
My sister’s early room was preserved more in tacked but her second room was likewise destroyed in the same flood.
Repurposed it and didn’t tell me until I went home for Christmas, went to drop my bags off in my room and it wasn’t there.
My beloved, all-straight-lines, compact little closet had been moved to the balcony and rapidly become a dove condo; what was my room had become a living room, and the room which had acquired a new closet in a style I despise and was supposed to be “my” room now was the darkest and smallest one in the house. Thanks Mom, your claustrophobic daughter loves ya too.
My brothers’ room is still the same, except for their college class pictures and some other decorative details. Same furniture, same bedcovers, the only changes are those two pictures on the wall and a handful of knick-knacks.
When I left for college (all of 40 miles away across the big city) the mutual expectation was that I’d return for the summers and for occasional weekends. Which I did.
So my room remained mostly unchanged, although some overflow stuff ended up in my closet. My younger siblings all had decent-sized rooms of their own and the house was big so there wasn’t any immediate pressure to re-purpose the room.
A few years later after I was well and truly on my own, as were all the other kids, the various kid bedrooms eventually got re-purposed. Later yet the house was remodeled which combined two kid rooms to create a large loft / media room. That was the point of no return for what had been my room.
Then a few years later the house was sold. By then I was 40-something and had been out of there for 20+ years.
All along there was never the idea of a shrine as such or even of the room somehow still being my possession as even a 25-year old. Rather each room got repurposed by the parents once a new use was found for it. The house was big enough to begin with that the pressure for change built only slowly after I / other siblings were gone.
I’m the youngest. As soon as I moved out, my parents put the house on the market, and the house stagers turned my cavelike boy’s room into a bright, frilly, pink girl’s room. I had to stay there when I came back for thanksgiving, and it was actually kind of disturbing.
When I moved out, I took all my bedroom furniture with me. They refurnished the room with a new bed, side table, and moved the computer desk in there. So it’s been a guest bedroom/office since I moved out. Though I might still have some stuff in the closet.
When I was a sophomore in college, my parents bought a new house. My room there was always just kind of mine - Even though I didn’t like the paint and wallpaper, my mom did, so we left it… which ended up being really annoying when I stayed there through grad school.
When I got married, they left the bed there for awhile, it eventually got donated to a cousin who had outgrown his toddler bed, at which point there was an armchair and another bookshelf added. It’s now a nice little reading room/ office. The only vestige of it being my room is one stuffed animal that lives in the corner.
My sister’s room has more of her stuff in it. She’s never gotten around to getting a “permanent” place, so they’ve never bugged her about taking her sentimental things - old yearbooks and soccer trophies. They’ve re-arranged that room to be more accommodating to guests, however, and most of her stuff has been stashed. It’ll take us 30 minutes to pack up and move the rest of her stuff once she buys a house.
Wow…those Alfred Hitchcock mysteries certainly got around! I used to read them back in 1970. :eek:
No shrine for me: I moved out then my mum moved 300km away the week after. 
It became a guest room after college (I lived at home for parts of my college summers). I was allowed to store my belongings there for a year when I worked overseas; I was allowed to do so again when I went on a year of graduate school internship. Then I moved everything out and it became a waiting room when my mother moved her practice into the house. It’s still convertible to a guest room as needed.
Mine rented it out within weeks. (To a family friend whose high school was on strike - their son came and lived in my house for a semester and went to my high school, then returned home.)
Are you kidding? With seven sisters and one brother, Not a snowballs chance in hell! For the first two years, my brother kept the bunk bed and used the entire dresser as well as the small closet. After he went to college, we were both OUT! No room at the old homestead for us!
My youngest son? His old room still has his bed and dresser after ten years. The oldest sons bedroom became, and still is, the guest bedroom. Different bed and dresser. He took his.
I guess I could have mentioned that my folks moved about 6 years after I left home. My widowed mother still lives in that place, but it was never home for me. In fact, after 35 years, I still feel like a visitor when I go there.
My 2 youngest sisters lived there thru their high school years, and their rooms were eventually used by my grandparents and my mom’s disabled sister till all 3 of them died (in the bedrooms) and Mom converted them both to guest rooms.
Now that I think about it, my mother is very unsentimental. Apart from a few photos and a display box with some USMC memorabilia that my husband made her, my mom no longer has anything of my dad’s. Even her bedroom furniture is all new, altho to be fair, the old set was pretty old and not that great to begin with. So, no shrine for kids or husband or parents.
Mine was left alone for almost 15 years, then Mom went on a redecorating kick that eventually reached the upstairs. My inner 6 year old is still pretty bitter about them painting the walls flamingo pink–I would have given multiple limbs to paint my room pink at that point in my life and my parents just Would. Not. Have. It.
One of my friends, however, had to spend her spring break our senior year helping turn her bedroom into a guest room. Her parents not only couldn’t wait till she moved out, they made her do about half the work. And they wonder why she and they never got on all that well…
No, and it really wasn’t ever. By the time I was finished my first year of college, my sister had moved out. So over the summer I got the bedroom which had been hers - it was a nicer room than mine, larger and sunnier. My room became Dad’s computer room.
Now both those bedrooms are guest rooms, and my dad has the computer desk in the bigger/sunnier one. I don’t believe there’s anything of mine still left in what was originally my bedroom; if there is, it’s just coincidence.
I’m an only child and it was a four bedroom house. My parents left it the way it was for nine years, then they moved house and got rid of everything I hadn’t removed.
My parents didn’t even keep my bedroom when I left for University - I spent my weekends home sleeping on the couch!
Both times after I ‘left home’, my parents sold the home shortly after. When I went to University for the first time, they sold the house I grew up in and moved into a smaller place, which I moved back into after university. When I moved out and got my own permanent apartment, Mom sold the smaller place and moved into a condo. (Dad was in the hospital permanently by that point.)
Nope. Vacant rooms belong to mom.
My sister moved out, I moved into her room (it was bigger than mine), mom put her sewing stuff in mine.
My brother moved out, his room became mom’s auxiliary closet.
I moved out, mom got a second sewing/craft room.
A shrine- absolutely not. In fact , I spent my last couple of nights in that apartment on the couch. My sister was moving into the room and wanted to get my furniture out in time for the garbage pick-up.
Nope. My parents divorced and both moved to different places before I left for college. My mom kept some of the furniture I had in my room, but it’s all in different places around her apartment. I do sleep in my old bed when I visit her, but that room doubles as her computer room.