? for those who school in your formal dining room...

[Capt_Uhura]

For those of you who homeschool in your formal dining room, how do you do it? Do you use cabinets with doors so you can shut everything away? If so, please provide a link to the cabinets you like. We are currently considering a larger house. I really want a homeschool room. Dh thinks we don't need a formal dining room but I think it could double as our homeschool room for most of the year. During the holidays and a few times each year, we need to seat 8-10 people for dinner. The house we're thinking of has a formal living room but we're thinking of making that the family room and leaving the family room (w/ fireplace) as a sitting area since the fireplace really limits where you can place the TV. Yep, we have one of those large TVs....better to watch soccer! It's open to the kitchen so DH doesn't want the homeschool room in the ex-family room w/ the fireplace.

 

Thanks,

Capt_Uhura

[kewb]

Sorry, no real pics, although you can probably see a corner of the credenza on my blog in some of the pics taken at home

.

That said, school supplies-pens, crayons, pencils, staplers, etc. are stored in one of the cabinets of the credenza. Paper, binders, books, the globe, and the like are on a book case in the kitchen. The chair in the corner of the dining room houses all the books from the library.

 

The dining room walls are decorated in early middle school. An assortment of maps sharing wall space with decorative plates. My dh hates it but everyone who comes over loves looking at the maps.

 

Using the dining room as our school room works out great for us. When company is coming all the books return to the book case and all the supplies are put away.

[hsmamainva]

We do school in our dining room. We have a large pine table that comfortably seats 6.

 

For storing school supplies, I use the matching hutch. It's a huge piece of furniture so it has lots of shelves, drawers, and cabinets to hold all of our books and materials.

 

Against another wall, I have a computer desk and that's where the kids' computer is. It's convenient to use for schoolwork that way and, on the days that my youngest is home, I can have her there with us, playing on the computer, while the boys have their regular school day.

[Janet in WA]

When we homeschooled in our formal dining room, we used stacking "milk" crates to store everything. Each son had his own crate with his books and supplies, and I had my own crate, plus a couple of extra crates for miscellaneous supplies. During the school day, we grabbed the crates and carried them wherever we needed them. Then, at the end of the school day, all the crates were restacked in the corner. If we wanted to "deschool" the room, we just moved the crates to another room for the duration. We had bookshelves in other rooms for our literature collection.

 

I've never been one for school stuff on the walls, so there was no need for maps or charts or timelines or whiteboards to be displayed.

[Sasharowan]

WE have floor to ceiling shelves that dh built on 2 1/3 walls of the dining room. The kids all have desks built into them that close up when not in use. We also have an eight seater table. So we sprawl out during school days and shelve everything when we need to use it as a dining room. Most guests are family or other homeschoolers, so as long as it is off the table, I don't worry too much.

[MissKNG]

Our school is located in our formal dining room. We have a large table that seats 8 when both leaves are in the middle (right now it's at 6 with only one leaf in it). I have all our books in an upright rack on it, a box containing Sonlight Science on it, a stack of craft projects on it and the books I'm trying to sell on it. It's easy to remove these things and move into another room when we entertain. To one side of the dining room, I have our cabinet (with glass doors for books), a plastic set of 3 drawers (for supplies and manipulatives), and another plastic 7 drawer tower (holds craft supplies, curriculum for next year, puzzles). Plus I have the globe sitting on top of the 7 drawer tower and a shoe box with a 3 hole punch and a pencil sharpener. I also have stuff on top of the 3 drawers. There are other things in the formal dining room that are non-school related like an old Singer sewing machine and an old radio. Plus a chalkboard is floating around too!

[5forMe]

We began schooling in our formal dining room, but my DS usually ends up at the kitchen table. He likes it better there and there is more of the morning sun in the kitchen. In the afternoon, we do reading, history and/or science where there is a lot of reading alone involved. He spends the afternoon on the couch or in a comfy chair.

 

I realized the other day that basically my formal dining room table has become the storage area for all of his homeschool books. I need to reorganize and find him a bookshelf in our playroom or his room so I can have my formal dining room table back.

 

Maps are hung on the walls in our basement/playroom area. We run down there when we need to locate something.

[Brooketopia]

We don't have a "formal" dining room--we HS in our regular ol' dining room. We have a rather large pantry/coat closet that I converted into our HS closet and that's where we store everything.

 

We also have five wheely plastic cabinet things that we store all our paper (writing, white, construction by color, completed work) that fit under the counter overhang from the kitchen. (My kids would kill themselves if we set up stools there.)

 

Don't know if that helps at all, but I figured you'd be interested in more POVs than less.

[Ferdie]

We hs in our formal dining room and keep most of our supplies in the den which is across the hall. My children keep their books and supplies in a crate. The crate is kept on the floor of the dining room during the week and then stored in the den on the weekends. I keep my TMs and supplies on a rolling cart that stays in the dining room during the week and is stored in the den closet on the weekends. My rolling cart also has a filing drawer and a container for my supplies.

 

We don't use any of the wall space in the dining room for hs so I put a world map and some charts on the table top and covered it with a clear hard plastic table cover, (available at the fabric store $5 per yard). I leave that on during the school year and cover it with a fabric tablecloth for events. We don't really use a white board any more, but I have a standing table top easle white board that I bring out if needed.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Ferdie

[momofkhm]

But I think our house is unique as our "eat in kitchen" space is actually very large. When our parents visit (just one set) we can fit everyone at the table in the kitchen - fits 8, but we'd only have 7. Then we school on a different table. If needed that table will seat 6. The problem is that I don't have that many chairs! (14)

 

I have 2 bookcases, the table, and a love seat size couch in the dining room. Plus stuff on the floor that doesn't fit anywhere else. When we need to use the school room as a dining room, we just clear the table off.

 

For most things, we just eat in the kitchen. DH and I aren't really fancy people so it doesn't bother us at all not to use the kitchen. There is a fancy chandelier in the dining room that I'd love to replace, but it's not in the budget and so fall under the "it ain't broke so don't fix it."

[Capt_Uhura]

the house we're looking at doesn't have a very large area for the eat-in kitchen. It would comfortably fit a round table which seats 4. Dh doesn't eat w/ us during the week so that is where the kids and I (4 of us) would eat. At the weekend when DH is home, we'd probably eat in the dining room. DH cooks those meals and so our table of 6 is full of food along w/ our place settings. So it would be nice to be able to leave the table out w/ the leaf in so we'd have more room.

 

My thought was to get a cabinet with doors to store most used school supplies. Then have a school area in the basement to store science kits, microscopes, books not being used etc. Then have a common area in a room upstairs (Dh's office?) for the bookshelf with our literature books.

 

Right now our house is on the market. I moved 4 bookcases to the basement. I'm making do w/ two baskets which are about 1ft wide and 2 feet long which holds the stuff we use everyday. WHen we do chemistry, I bring our chem notebooks etc up from the basement.

 

I'm thinking of having a corkboard/white board on the wall that I could take down when company is over. I'd like to have a calendar for the kids, white board for working MCT Practice Island together, memory work etc. Right now I have those things on a display board and I bring it out everyday and put it away.

[Margo out of lurking]

We currently homeschool in the only eating area in our house. The dining area and family room combine to make a "great room." We bought a large buffet specifically to store all daily school materials. The rest of the stuff is in the basement. The buffet blends in with our family room furniture. I've used it backed up to the back of the sofa like a sofa table; it's currently along a wall with a lamp and a few other knick knacks on it.

 

EVERYTHING is put away every single day. You would never walk into our house and realize we hs in the middle of our living area (unless it was school time).

 

(This was when it arrived; no knick knacks, no pics on the walls, no window coverings!)

 

[LNC]

We do. The pics are in an album at my profile page. Those rooms are in the front of our home, and are technically a formal dining/living room separated by the foyer. We don't eat in there, but we could if we needed the space.

 

We love our set up bc I am near the kitchen and my special needs son's bedroom. HTH!

[BeckyFL]

We spend some of our school time in the formal dining room. I use to have a hutch with 3 drawers and 3 book shelves on top in there. Next to it was a portable cart for supplies with more drawers. It cluttered everything and my organized/decorating friend encouraged me to get rid of it. Now I have school supplies in one of the bedroom closets and a bookshelf around the corner from the dining room in the family room. Much better. My other bookshelves (this was a problem -number of books!) were cluttering up my room. Now they are also in the one bedroom closet (walk-in) on shelves in there. My house looks SO much better.

[MariannNOVA]

I could take pics, but everyone else has explained quite eloquently and completely.

Since our water incident, we are all on the main level of the house doing school. Kitchen/formal dining room is now one very large 'great kitchen' -- we removed a wall. For entertaining, everyone fits around our table, or we do buffet, and overflow goes onto screened gazebo room and living room.

For school, one would never know that we homeschool unless (as someone else said) one walks into our house in the middle of the day. I have a large armoire in the living room, every bit of school stuff fits in here. It has shelves, drawers, and it works beautifully.

Considering that we have owned homes that were HUGE (6500 sq feet) and this is probably the smallest house we have ever owned, we have figured out a way to make this small space work.

[Capt_Uhura]

Mariann - ok 6500 sq.ft? WOW!

 

I think the armoire or something similar is the way to go! Thanks everyone. We're actually second guessing moving b/c if DH doesn't get bonuses w/ this new company as w/ the old, I'd have to go back to work to pay taxes on the house and right now I think my priority has to be HSing. If we don't move, there is an option of making a HS room over our garage and it could double as a guest room which we need for DH's parents when they visit.

 

Capt_Uhura

[Guest Pianomom]

We also use the milk crates for each child.

 

I have a big closet in the dining room where I put two large shelves on two of the walls for supplies.

 

I just shut the door so I don't have to see it if I don't want to!