2013-14 Learning Room Update

I initially wrote this post in April and decided to update it with more photos of our living room, dining room and garage/ learning lab areas. The changes are fairly significant from this post (2011) and this (my first school room post back in 2009).

When you enter our home, you'll see the main hall and formal dining room. I covered the dining table with a vinyl tablecloth for easy clean up when we use it for crafts and easy labs. I like storing things in wicker baskets and trays because they are easy to lift and stow away when we have guests. Then all I have to do is throw a nice tablecloth over the vinyl one and hopefully, no one will notice that the table is a little scratched and bumped. :)

From the dining area, you can enter our kitchen. The layout includes an alcove with a study desk and cabinets. The study desk is my central admin area where I store the printer, paper, binders. The cabinets above it keep my homeschooling manuals and miscellaneous guide books, unused curriculum and so on. Opposite this desk is the treadmill, a dinette table and Adrian's crate.

Our family room--our main learning area--faces the kitchen. It's where we spend the majority of our time at home.

Last December, we started looking for furniture to update and redecorate this room. Previously, we did a lot of our learning sitting on the floor with a coffee-table as a study/ laptop desk. Since kiddo started a few online and distance education classes last year, it became obvious that he needed a centrally-placed sturdy, large desk and more space to organize folders, books and various stationery.

His study desk is from World Market. I managed to snag one at clearance price. It's large enough for me to share it in a pinch. We love it!

We used to have a loveseat where the desk is now. It had to be moved to the garage. I do regret it because it used to be lovely to use for read alouds, but oh well, we'll survive. We looked all around our city for an affordable, small-ish couch to replace the loveseat but the price was never right.

So we opted for two recliners for the grownups and an armchair for kiddo instead. Kiddo also gets a nice office chair (from Staples) for when he's at his study desk.

That cute, colorful ottoman is also from World Market and serves as either my laptop desk or kiddo's footrest. It has storage space inside for throws and blankets too.

The photos of his desk were all taken on different days. As you can see, the wall space above the desk is still under consideration...for now, I'm using it to put up math problems he is chewing on or reminders to help him dig deeper on his learning.

My favorite space is actually this reading corner. I love how cosy it looks in the evenings. :)

I keep kiddo's syllabi and other important admin documents in the binder. The straw tote holds books that I want us to focus on at a given time...a sort of an afternoon basket for learn-together tomes. I keep the tote next to my recliner. I often sit at the foot of the recliner to work on my laptop while kiddo does his online classes.

On the left, a view from where I normally sit (and because no post is complete without a snapshot of Adrian lol).

Our bookshelves are overflowing so I recently found this fabulous bench/ bookshelf for additional book storage. It sits in the corner behind my recliner and houses binders and a good number of our lit, writing and history texts. I like that we can use it as a window seat/ additional guest seating if we need to. Again everything is in baskets and bins. For someone who tries her best to think out of the box, you can see that I'm also very much an in-the-box person!

The dining and family rooms are my space to spend with kiddo. When working with his dad, kiddo usually uses the garage or hubby's office upstairs.

Our family room tends to be neat most of the time because kiddo knows I like it that way. But the garage is a different story! :) There's stuff everywhere! It houses kiddo's chemistry lab and electronics/ rocket-building workspaces. All this in addition to a car and our bicycles and miscellaneous other household storage. :)

A closer look at the chemistry table (they are working on hooking up plumbing for the sink on the right). I think all that wall space is screaming for some Ideapaint, don't you? Maybe when we win the lottery eh? ;)

I hope you enjoyed the tour and thanks for visiting!