Homeschool Room, A Work In (a little bit of ) Progress

If you came over from Heart of the Matter, please tell me you stopped in! If you didn't, you might want to check it out! This week is schoolroom week...

Several years ago we decided to add on to our house. One of the rooms we planned to add was a homeschool room.

We had always used our home comfortably, but it sure sounded nice to have a room dedicated to all of the books and crafts, etc. which come along with homeschooling. That way we’d have everything all in one place. Especially since, at that time, we had 5 school-aged children. That’s alot of stuff.

So build we did. And we made glorious plans for all of the wonderful things we’d include. Ohhh, the sheer joy of envisioning everything we’d learn, and all of the crafts and projects we’d do there. It was gonna be gooooddd.

Then, a certain worldwide business machine company my husband worked for changed their mind about something pretty important. And the effect on us was alot of money. NOT in our pockets. Which had been promised.

So, the addition was built and we were pretty far along, but we simply. ran. out. of. money. $$$

HALT.

Since then, that room has been a storage room, a garage sale prep room, a rabbit dormitory and a homeschool storage area, among other things.

Disclaimer: Let me be clear, I am not complaining. I am grateful that I have the space and all of the beautiful things it already contains. I am grateful I even get to stay home with my kids, not to mention homeschool them. I know that many are struggling now. And we’re okay, we just have an unfinished addition. And I know there are many of you who would just like to pay your light bill.

This year, it is my hope to use it, as is, for it’s originally intended purpose. Because we built it. And, hey, the kids are not getting any younger (Drat those kids!!).

So, today, I am swallowing my pride, and I am going to show you some pictures of the room in pretty raw form. Then I am going to tell you a few of my ideas and inspirations and invite you to help me make it be the best it can be, in it’s present form, for little to no money.

Basic idea, view from door. To my left, about 2 feet inside the door on the same wall as the shelves you see here, is the plumbing for the farm sink.

Some of the high points (dreams come true) are:

~ The old time light fixtures that came from the same molds as old schoolhouse light fixtures. I adore those!

~ In the big box against the wall is our 30” Porcher Farm sink. Waiting. And our plumbing fixtures are in the box on top of it.

~ All of the big windows and french doors, allowing us to enjoy the views, inviting us to participate in all of the warmth and greens and nature and natural light.

~ Soft, yet bright, yellow walls. I love yellow!

The two main basic things that are still missing are the flooring and the trim around the floors. You can see the sub-flooring has also seen better days!

We have the trim all stained and ready to go. The flooring we chose is made of cork and cut so it looks like planks, similar to this:

It is a highly durable material, and is made with renewable resources. This guy has some interesting information about cork flooring.

I have talked about painting the floor while we wait to save the rest of the money we need for the flooring. But we keep thinking we are close, so just haven’t yet.

North and east facing windows

Current reading area

I envision having a reading area. We use a literature based curriculum. And we read alot anyway. I hope to find some kind of comfy couch and/or chairs on Craigslist or at the Goodwill to place here.

We already had the area rug, so it is there for now. We already had the pillows too. The reverse sides are animal prints. I am thinking of recovering them. Or I may just move them back to the family room.

The little 60’s cart was my grandparents. It is brown and getting beat up looking. I may repaint it. Because the books we read change all of the time, I thought this would be a sweet way to keep our current books handy to our reading area. It also holds my youngest son’s coloring lap tray, and can hold other learning things to keep him busy. It’s also a good place for our file box. It holds chore cards, memory cards and cue cards to study for tests.

East facing door and west facing wall, which adjoins our living room. The big bump contains our chimney. The picture was hung when something taller was there. I don’t usually hang art very high.

All three of the desks were given to us by friends who were moving out of state. They are not exactly what I had in mind, but free is a very good price and I am grateful I have these desks for now. I had grand ideas for built in custom counters, cabinets and desks, and shelves going all the way up to the ceiling in this area, to take advantage of the vertical space (you can’t tell here, but it is a very high ceiling), which we would access via an old (or old looking, safety first!) ladder.

(Note: Regrettably, not my room. Just a great example of what I’d like.)

This picture, that I just now found in a great feature by Country Living, is ALOT like what I had in mind, down to the look of the plank wood floors and the farm table (in fact, there is lots of other fun inspiration in that piece!). Ours would include low counters or wide sills for ant farms, butterfly cocoons, and other small animal habitats, our interactive globe, microscope, etc.

I’d love cabinets like these:

Those cabinets (above) are very close in color to our bathroom cabinets, and I love it. But I think we will eventually go with white cabinets since the doors are white and the walls are yellow. I’d love butcher block tops too, but it depends on what else we settle on and when. We may go with black. The picture above even has a farm style sink. And I love the lower counter right next to the sink too!

My little desk area (I found the sweet old chair at the Goodwill for under ten dollars)

I am trying to decide if this area should be for school related work only, or if I should find a way to store other items such as stationery, bill paying center, etc.

Right now I have some contraband naked bottom photos of my kids. Those are the six 8X10 pictures you see above.I had each child photographed in the same pose between 6-7 months, laying on their tummy, bare naked. They are very sweet and innocent. But one of my older boys decided recently that it was time for them to disappear. So I am trying to honor his wishes while still being able to enjoy something I love. I doubt he will even notice they are there. At least not for a long time.

The other piece of “art” is a dream board. I recently participated in a Bible study based on the book of Ruth. One of the assignments was simply to dream, and to make something where we could visualize some of our dreams. That might sound simple, but it was quite an undertaking for me. I will talk about that in another post. Under the dream board, hanging on a hook, is my literal, written (but still partial) Bucket List, inside a little bucket.

Because, where else in a house do you put something like that? I also plan to hang some precious photos I took in India somewhere in this area. And, obviously, I need some kind of shelving and storage. Oh, and do you see the cute blue file folders on my desk? Take note, because I am going to bring them up again.

Here is the current storage solution. The shelves were free, from the same people who gave us the desks. Just to the left of these shelves is where the plumbing is for the farm sink.

I prefer not to have all of the clutter exposed. I am working at tidying it up but, eventually, I hope to have more enclosed cabinets. I am searching for some solutions on how to store notebooks too (you have any ideas on this?). Because their shape just irritates me as they don’t line up nicely on the shelves. And I have set a goal to use up alot of those craft items on the bottom shelves before the school year is over!

A piece of art I love (you can see in picture above where it is hanging). I found it at the Goodwill a few years back and thought it would be perfect for a homeschool room.

Since I think the light prevented you from being able to see in the picture above, I thought I’d show you our homeschool security system, Boris. If you look closely, you can even see where he slimed the window. LOL.

As I have mentioned before, I recently took a trip to India. And, yes, part of my heart stayed there when the rest of me flew home. I have been wanting to come up with a way to include that beautiful, bright, Indian blue you so often see there. So far, I have not worked it into our house.

Near Mother Teresa’s Home For the Destitute and Dying, Kolkata

Two beautiful children I love

I will be framing the pictures above, as well as others with blue, above my desk. This brings me back to the blue file folders. And the pillows I might recover. And how I want to tidy up the shelves.

I want to keep the room somewhat farmy and schoolish and traditional, but would like to inject a pop of this color, or similar, here and there.

I have three school aged children and a pre-schooler. I’d like ideas on inexpensive ways to make this room work. Each item I add must be functional, not just decorative. Do you have ideas for me?

Oh, and if you know of any contests to win a free room makeover, I’d make a great contestant!