Changes

We have the luxury of devoting an entire section of our house to homeschooling. The back half of our downstairs is the designated school room, but it often multitasks as the play room. There isn't a way around it, unless I were to get tough and definitively proclaim that there will be no more toys back in this room, and the toys will remain in the bedrooms upstairs and only upstairs, and never shall we see the toys downstairs again, forever and ever, amen. 

Realistically though? That is just not going to happen. (Wendy told me so and she was right. I should have listened to her.) You see, this was my plan when we moved into this house: I wanted the toys to stay upstairs, except for a few choice educational things. However, certain youngest children that I know do not care to play in a room all alone way upstairs while everyone else is downstairs doing school.

And so we adjusted. Or we tried to...but I will confess, it was not always well done. In fact, most of the time, the downstairs has been and is a disaster. 

I go back and forth in my own head regarding the disaster. I have happy, busy, creative children, therefore I have a messy house. BUT! These children need to learn how to have fun and be creative AND clean up after themselves. Their future selves and families will be so glad that they did learn that skill. 

My hope is that we are working on it. All of us need to be better at following through and picking up, putting the things that we got out away, taking the time to clean. it. up. (Cough, cough, dirtydishesinthesink, cough, cough.)

Every now and then, we'd get it picked up. (Read: I would get it picked up.)

But here is what is really fun...the whiteboard is on the wall!!

We have been busy setting up a new desk area and rearranging some of the furniture so that the room will hopefully be more conducive to getting school work done, and just have a better place for things in general. The tall white tower in the picture above is going to be removed altogether. We are planning on getting an L-shaped desk to wrap around in that corner from the long white table over to where the other table ends. There will be a LOT of table surface. The drawer units under the new desk are amazing. I am so glad that Mike discovered this option at Ikea. Putting them together was a breeze (I practically did it by myself.) and I am quite satisfied with their quality. Right now they are holding a ton of stuff which used to be on a metal cart that lived under the high counter (where the old school table is now). Since the metal cart is currently available for another use, I will move it into the kitchen area to house some of the larger items that literally cannot fit in my cabinets. (My kitchen is not that big.) 

The counter, or ledge or bar area or whatever you want to call it, is one of my next projects. It has become a catch-all for random things: a bird feeder (um, there are no birds in this house...I do not need a bird feeder in my kitchen), candy, a baseball show-box, and a small fire extinguisher are just a few fine examples of how we do decor around here.

NOT FOR MUCH LONGER! I am changing some things, man.

This is what you see when you walk in our front door. It is the backside of the room which has the new white table. Prepare for an overhaul! 

The yellow couch is either moving to the living room or we're getting rid of it. And then I don't know what we'll do with the space. Bookshelves? Maybe. We can always use some more of those...

Or maybe we'll set up the electronic drum set. So many possibilities...I can hardly stand not knowing how it's all going to turn out. But I know it will be worth the work to make the changes in the end. 

Comments

[Mindee@ourfrontdoor]

Your home has some lovely features. No matter how it all comes together it will look good.

[Wendy]

2 days ago we went to Ikea for the first time.Quite impressive/expansive/massive. We just looked, but I saw some possibilities if I decide to rearrange my school room.