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Our Homeschool Room Setup
- Dolly Jones
- Sep 14, 2024
- 3 min read
Anyone who knows us knows that we tend to move about every two years. Both of us have military backgrounds, so everyone assumes it has something to do with that, but it, in fact, has to do with us obtaining homes for our short-term rental business. This year was no different in that we once again moved—but this time, we've decided to put our roots down and really try to make this our forever home. It's a beautiful little farmhouse in the Shenandoah Valley, which according to my husband is the only place to live east of the Mississippi. It's close enough to friends and church, with plenty of land for our farm animals and gardens with a view of the mountains that can't be beat. It's everything I could have ever dreamed of and more.
This beautiful, perfect home has come with one challenge, and that is it was a huge downsize from our last place. Mostly in the fact that there is no basement. So we find ourselves each needing room to run our businesses, and also needing to find space to properly homeschool the kiddos. I know most people are content with school at the kitchen table, and rightfully so—it's a natural place to end up during busy school days. That's where my own schooling took place growing up as well. But I find my family tends to be a little more consistent when we have designated spaces for each of our daily routines. Our new home has come with some interesting design challenges, which to be honest, is where I thrive! I love making random little nooks into something special, and awkward rooms into the coziest place in the house!
Below are some photos of how I took our upstairs, which is literally the size of our entire downstairs with no walls to divide anything into rooms and have made it into a cozy, practical place to live! This space, which has no dividing walls has to serve as my studio (inventory and packing department), our family room where we watch movies with the projector that was left behind by the previous owners, a playroom for my 3-year-old while the oldest kids do school, and, of course, a schoolroom.
The biggest challenge with this space is that there is only one main window, then two smaller windows, each belonging to one of the very deep gables. Neither offers much light to the entire space. It is also not climate controlled via ductwork and instead relies on one mini-split for the entire space. After sitting with ideas juggling around in my head for a while, I decided we definitely have to divide the space up into at least three separate rooms, but with financial restraints, climate controlling each room was going to be too much. The solution? Free-standing bookshelves that my husband is reinforcing with shiplap-like materials! This has allowed us to create distinct spaces so everyone can go about their business, be it doing schoolwork, watching a movie, sitting in the reading nook, or spending time building Legos or doing puzzles in one of the play areas.
For now, I want to share our schoolroom in its entirety, as well as links to where I purchased some of our supplies and furniture.
The "wall" used to divide our school room from the rest of the space is a shelf I purchased at Ikea about 7 years ago. My husband added a back using wall paneling which help really reinforce the shelf to make it very solid, plus allows us to have a couch and small desk on the other side.
Purchase shelf here!
Color-coding books is the BEST way to keep them organized, and to help younger children who can't read yet find their favorite books!
The kiddos desks were purchased on Amazon here:
The chairs from here:
I got these amazing peg boards, accessories and drawing/coloring supplies from Ikea.
This table and bench set has been with us the past two moves and has held up beautfully! It's where we do group morning basket, and the kiddos do any non-painting art projects. It's big enough to easily sit six children, especially if you add a couple more chairs at the ends. I got it here:
We've had the washable rainbow rug for 5 years and it's still like new!
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