The New School Room

The school room is finally finished and ready for sharing!

After negotiating with Dean for some more space, we decided to clear the front room to make a dedicated room for homeschool. (Surprisingly, even after 7 years of homeschooling, we never had a dedicated space to work in. We would either cram around a desk in the office, or the kitchen table, or spread out in the living room... it was never ideal.) Our supplies and books were never all together in the same place. The piano got moved to the living room (sorta sad about that because now that room looks and feels cramped), and Dean and Jordan's maker space was taken down and may be set up again in the basement. It was a problem anyway because the little boys would not leave the tools alone. With the room clear, in the two weeks before my knee surgery I painted the walls like a mad woman, completed an art project, we made a trip to Ikea and we hung up new window treatments. I am so excited with the results!! I have dreamed of this room for years...

Here is the before. This was a golden yellow paint. I loved this color... In the mornings, when the sunrise would light up this side of the house, it would just glow - not in an irritating way..more like a soft glow, like warm baked bread. I remember picking out this paint. I was newly single, and picking out some chairs at LazyBoy. This yellow was used in the showroom in a little family room setting, and I just knew I had to have it. I got the paint (Benjamin Moore), and painted some rooms this color, and chose a softer yellow for other walls. Over the years, it got a bit dingy. Well, a lot dingy. I had also unfortunately used a flat paint, so I couldn't scrub pencil, marker, greasy hand prints or anything else off of it. By painting day, I was overjoyed to see it go. I was also excited that the very ugly brass light fixture that illuminated *nothing* was on its way out the door as well.

Here is the after...

I have True Confessions of a Homeschooler to thank for the inspiration for the desk. Had our bank account been able to take the full hit, we would have done the four separate drawer units as well, but....in using it for the past few weeks as it is right now, I like the airiness of it just being the table, alone. We made the trip to Ikea in late July, making a day of it. We purchased the following items:

2 Linnmon table tops, in white, with soft green trim around the edges
8 Adils table legs, in silver
3 Jules Jr chairs, two in white, one in pink ;)
1 Vilgot Swivel chair, in black, for Jordan
1 KNAPPA pendant lamp, 2 spotlights and the Sanda track

I love the black chair as it is super-comfy. I am buying another one for me, in fact, tomorrow, as we will be driving right by Ikea on our way to a school picnic. The one in the pic is Jordan's, the other three are for the little kids. The table tops are terrific. In the past few weeks they have been subjected to pencil, crayon, acrylic paint, ModPodge, Elmer's Glue and cat puke. It all cleaned up beautifully. Mr. Clean's Magic Eraser is your best friend.

We love the new light. I affectionately call it the Giant Cauliflower. It took some considerable dexterity to put it together, but it puts out a ton of soft light on the work surface below. Here is a pic I took at night... The light looks like it is glaringly bright, but that is just the way the picture turned out - but look at how well it illuminates the entire table! The table measures 5' x 5', so it is a pretty big surface.

This is my pride and joy. I first encountered an alphabet wall very similar to this in our pediatrician's office about three years ago.  Ever since I saw it, I wanted to make one for our home, but there was never the appropriate wall space for it. It does take a serious amount of wall space. When this room came to fruition, I thought it would be the perfect place for it. Most of the letters came from Hobby Lobby, the rest from Michael's, and the plate from Target. It took about three solid days of shopping, designing, painting and so forth to finish it. Some letters were as-is, but most of them were embellished in some way. It was hard to get a good shot of the wall from straight-on because of Giant Cauliflower, but here it is. I think my favorite is the letter "B". It is a fancy box from Michael's that is in the shape of a Book, with Butterflies on it. I painted a wooden letter B, in Black, and glued it on. :)

Alphabet Wall Art

This bookcase was built many years ago, and had been banished to the garage a couple years back. I painted it with a fresh coat of white paint, and it lives to see another day! The math manipulatives, which have  lived forever in two large wicker baskets, are now properly sorted and easy to find in their new containers, from the Container Store. LOVE that place, and they were a nice price, too! The shelf next to it holds three stacks of Calvert teaching manuals, one for each kiddo. The other four shelves hold each kid's pile of school stuff.

And that's it! School is in session, and so far, so good. We had a lot of discussion about personal work habits before pulling this room together. Having one giant table won't work for everybody, as some kids need their space. We addressed the needs and concerns for each kiddo.  No, we don't all sit around this table and slog away in our work for hours and hours until it's done. I think over the past week we maybe spent a grand total of 1 hour all sitting at the same space.  During the day the kids come and go as they rotate turns working with me, and it's nice to have such a large table surface to push some work to the side, and pull another pile closer and spread out. Calvert is especially manual-heavy, so I may be managing four different books at one time - plus the kid's stuff!

Many, many thanks to my husband for putting the tables and chairs together and installing the new lights.  The kids helped with the chairs, each getting a turn putting their own chair together.  I feel very, very fortunate to have this space for us to work in. :)

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