Logistics of homeschooling in a small house?

[Sevilla]

We're living in under 800 sq ft with two adults and two kids (so far...). We'll be here for the next few years, which means the majority of elementary age hs'ing will happen in this space.

 

While our house is spacious by global standards, for the US it is quite small and I'm already challenged by how to make it work with schooling. We have limited available workspace (only a smaller dining table from IKEA - no desk available as that is where DH works from home) and limited storage (one or two shelves and two drawers - that would need to hold manipulatives for math, handwriting, art supplies, paper, other curriculum/supplies, etc...). We've got five rooms (all small): living room, kitchen, 2 bedrooms (neither of which have room for a large desk or hs storage shelves), and a bathroom the size of a closet.

 

Any specific furniture/storage/organizational advice would be much appreciated. I am not a packrat and my house is decluttered - we keep only what we need to use.

 

Our living room could *maybe* take one more piece of furniture, if we got rid of the TV stand (which doesn't have a TV on it, but I do use it to store things) and the kiddie table that is our 'reading area' with library books.

Edited February 26, 2011 by Sevilla

[annlaura]

:bigear: Curious too. Our house is small too. I plan to use our dining table and island quite a bit, and right now DS4 is comfortable at our little child-size table. And of course the couch for reading together. Looking forward to other ideas and btdt.

[mcconnellboys]

I tend to think I'd line the walls of my rooms with narrow bookcases, if possible. Behind the sofa, as headboards for the beds - everywhere I could put them. That's not absolutely necessary, of course. I see lots of folks hsing at the library, for instance, and you could certainly do your work there at least some days or some times of day. You could also just rely more on library and web resources, the new e-books on a Kindle, etc.

 

I've seen lots of folks use the gutter shelving for children's books. Those wouldn't work for thicker books, however - or for very tall books....

 

Could the TV stand be one that incorporates shelves, too? I'd look for pieces that double as both storage/shelving and other functions. We have always used old trunks as coffee or side tables, for instance. They are filled with stored things, too. We use chests at the foot of beds that can be used as tables or for seating, but also storage. Storage ottomans might be another option.

 

I read here years ago about a very smart person who replaced their box springs on their beds with those big, sturdy storage tubs. Their dust ruffle covered the tubs, and evidently the weight was distributed evenly enough that it didn't break the tubs. Another option would be beds that include drawer storage in their bases and headboards. Or even those rolling, underbed storage units. I think those would work a lot better for things you need access to with any regularity....

 

What about storing out of season things in tubs in a garage, if you have one?

[A home for their hearts]

Here is a link to a similar thread I posted a few weeks ago.

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=239207

 

We do a lot of our schooling at the kitchen table. Having items that can serve more than one purpose helps. Take advantage of any storage space you may have under beds. Try to use curriculum that doesn't have a lot of materials. The public library stores all the books I wish I had room for :D . Install shelves that you can hang on the walls, think vertical space! If you can't use the kitchen table maybe get some tv trays the your dc can use while sitting on the couch that they can be folded and stored away (under the couch or bed) when not in use. http://www.amazon.com/TV-Tray-Set-%252d-Natural/dp/B00005OU0E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298694868&sr=8-1

HTH!

[elinnea]

We lived in a 900 sq ft house WITH my parents for two years starting when my oldest ds was in 1 st grade. Then we moved to an 800 sq ft house for two years while we built our new house. All that to say- I've been there and it can work! :001_smile:

 

In those years we tried to keep it very lean and not have a ton of extra books or supplies. We did schoool at our small dining table and each of my boys had one of those shallow plastic under the bed storage containers for their books. I only kept minimal art supplies and those I stored in a small cabinet in the kitchen. We didn 't have any extra books outside of textbooks or oft used references- everything else was from the library and those books were always stored in one or two baskets in the living room.

 

HTH

[Hen]

before the house we have now, we lived in a 900 sq. ft. house- I think it might have been 970...we did not have a dining table, just a small kitchen table pushed against the wall. we homeschooled at the kitchen table, we took a small coat closet and dh put in shelves for my books, leaving a small space to hang 2 or 3 coats. I kept the kids everyday workbooks in a small plastic dishwashing container and stacked these on the floor of the closet.

[Georgiana Daniels]

I feel for you! We are 5 people living in 1000 square feet and no yard or garage. Each of my girls have a "milk crate" for their personal school books and I have a mommy crate for all my supplies.

 

Our crates overfloweth.....

[kalanamak]

There was a thread on this in January, I think.

 

I was at a house where the sheet rock in the hall, where there were no wires, was pulled out and the studs covered with veneer and the wall became a bookshelf for paperbacks and knick knacks.

"Sweater boxes" on wheels for under the bed, full of art supplies and books.

 

Current curriculum in milkcrates that can stack at one corner of the closet.

 

One under the counter cabinet in the kitchen cleared out and art supplies or rubbermaid bins can go in there.

 

Restaurant trays ( the brown kind with a lip around the edge) with a few books flat on them slipped under the couch. E.g. GWG, SWO, and WWE on one tray.

 

HTH

[missmoe]

We live in a 1100 sq ft townhouse with 7 people. We use the dining room table for when I want to make sure the kids are working and staying on track. But mostly, we work in the living room on the couch or floor. My kids also go and work on their beds alot. We have a computer desk in our living room, but to be honest, we hardly use it. We have several laptops that we use while sitting on the couch and they slide under the couch when not in use.

 

We don't park our car in the garage. Instead it's lined with shelves. I keep games and books we aren't using out there---as well as food and small appliances. I have little shelves that I've stuck in the upstairs hall that some of the kids keep their books for school on. The shelves block access to the heater, but are small enough that it wouldn't be a big problem to move them if we needed to. Some of my other kids keep their books in their closets in a bin or basket. I have a desk apprentice that I keep my TM's and supplies in. It sits on a window seat next to the globe. We also tuck our white boards behind the desk apprentice.

 

We have big furniture that isn't the best use of the space, but it is what we have from our last house (which was a big house) and this house is not permanent for us. If it was a more permanent home, I would make sure to get furniture that worked with the scale of the house. I would have a coffee table that held baskets or had drawers. I would have a closet organizer put into the hallway closet in order to better hold school supplies. I would also want to build cupboards or drawers into the wasted space behing the walls---such as under the stairs and under the built in window seat.

 

We also utilize the space under beds. We've added cabinets above the washer and dryer. Oh, and we have a home gym even---that pull-up bar in the kitchen doorway! :tongue_smilie:

[Musicmom]

Years ago I attended a local homeschool gathering that was run by a veteran (and very wise) homeschooling mother of 4. She shared the following organizational tip, which I've never forgotten: when her children were elementary age, she purchased a large plastic filebox (with lid) for each of them, in which they kept all of their school books and supplies. When it was time for school, they would bring their boxes to the kitchen table and get out whatever books/supplies they were working on. At lunch time, or when they were finished with schoolwork, they would pack everything up again in their boxes and the boxes were stacked in a corner. It took up little space and kept everything contained. It also proved handy for bringing school along on road trips--they simply loaded the boxes into the car.

 

At the time I had shelves for my 2 kids, but later I also tried this idea and found another handy feature of it: just add a few hanging folders on one side and you have a great place to keep a supply of notebook paper, a place for "papers in progress" and... an efficient way to store completed papers! (For years we used binders to store completed work--fun, especially when you have the children make covers for them, but after a few years... it's a LOT of binders--which take up a huge amount of space :tongue_smilie: I have boxes full...)

 

Another suggestion from this veteran homeschooling mom, in regard to managing all those papers generated during the year, was to (at the end of each year) go through all the papers and save just a few examples of the best or most memorable work and then make a small yearbook including those papers along with photos from the year. She showed the books she had made from her children's early elementary years--very special! This is something I really wish I had done.

[EppieJ]

I feel your pain, but I think I've got it a little better than you. There are 3 of us in approx 950 sf. There is precious little storage in this place, however. My coat closet doubles as the pantry. But you're right. By global standards we've got it good. But I digress.

 

We have a bookshelf in the hallway. I bought closetmaid cube storage units for ds' room (two 3x3 units; one 2x3) These are great for storage/organization. They work well as bookshelves and can be used with canvas boxes to hide stuff and keep things neat. We also went to IKEA recently and picked up a couple of other shelving units and canvas boxes for the living room. Looks nice; stays neat.

 

I don't have any (although I occasionally drool), but have you thought about those ottoman-type pieces that can be used for storage? Some of those look pretty nice, hold quite a bit and can be used for extra seating. Just a thought.

 

I look forward to reading some of these responses. Maybe I'll get some ideas for our place!

[missesd]

We have 9 people on 1100 sq ft. I just recently spent a good portion of our tax return maximizing our space, and making the most of what we have. We'll be here AT LEAST another year, if not more. Besides we left literally everything we owned behind in Reno when we moved down to TX to move in with my in-laws so my husband could hopefully find work.

 

Anyway, this is what we did... I set all the kids up in loft beds. Three of the boys, are in one room, with 3 lofts fitting snugly, but nicely :) Under 2 of the lofts are desks for schooling. One also has a dresser, and another has one of those wire cube storage things. The last one has a dresser, and bins for all his toys, divided by type (Lego, Imaginext, etc..). Then the girls room has 2 loft beds in the L shape, with the closet in between. Then my 6 yr old has a daybed coming off of on making another L. Under one is a dresser and desk, which will have a computer (so will one in the boys room too). Under the other loft, next to the daybed, is a dollhouse and an area for her bunnies and all her special treasures. In the closet I have put one of the very narrow, tall dressers. There is shoe storage over the door, and one girl hangs her clothes on each side of the dresser. The 6 yr olds goes in mine. I also store anything that is not nice dresses or jackets, in Ikea Trofast bins under her daybed.

 

Then comes my room, which is also the main school room. You can see some pics in my album (see my rpofile). I've changed some things around tonight, but it looks basically the same. I have a MAJOR, executive sized desk at the end of my full bed, which sits under a window. Behind me on the wall is my greaseboard, and wall maps. I also have attached an Ikea Norbo, drop down table, which makes an EXCELLENT dessk, and can fit 2!! On the next wall is my closet door, and inside my closet I have moved my big 3 shelf metal shelving unit. On this I store bins for every child,with their books and binders in there. I also have other bins labeled by subject for resource books and stuff for other years. After that on the wall is numbers, and wall calendar. I have also moved the free reading bookcase there. I used to store hampers there, but I am thinking of moving those into the closet, and putting another Norbo there. Then there is the door for my bathroom, and next to that my ABC wall. Now on the next wall I just put a HUGE Kura bed from Ikea, and under stored my littlest ones dresser, doll bed, a cubby for her dollies things, and possibly later a Trofast for her blocks, etc... if not I may put that in the closet as well. After that is a cubby I use as a nightstand and my bed.

 

In the livingroom, we have an entertainment center, a loveseat and a couch. I am trying to find a storage ottoman to use as a side table in there. Right next to that is a diningroom, which houses a VERY large table that have benches that slide under and out of the way. Also in there is a HUGE computer armoire. This is where our main pc is housed. The cabinets are in 1/2, and the lower half makes a side table for writing. For the most part the older kids do their work at the table (rarely), the armoire, the couches or their bed. The youngest ones do school with me in my room, which is nice cause I can close the door and shut off any distractions :)

 

I even managed to fit a small Ikea kids kitchen in my little itty bitty kitchen. I think the biggest chore I face is making sure that the kids can still be kids and have their stuff. I hate to see them give up toys they love, or things they might really like to have just because of space issues. Really... I am very happy how I have redesigned things, even though I've driven myself crazy for 2 weeks, and I think it's going to work well for us. Best money I think I've ever spent, and in some ways I think it was even better then moving into that bigger- and *more* expensive house ;)

[Sasharowan]

Well, we're just under 1300 feet with 6 people. We lined the dining room walls with floor to ceiling shelves and put 4 "desks" in them. We also have the dining table used for school and wooden tv tables that can be pulled out anywhere to use for school. Attached are pics of dd's desk both open and closed.

[Mrs Mungo]

Do you have an Ikea where you can go browse? They have a lot of small apartments set up in their stores. Tons of great storage ideas.

[AngelBee]

We have 9 people, 100lb dog, and a cat in about 800-900sq ft not counting kitchen and bathroom (which is shared with my mother, brother, and sister).

[lmkzbcb]

I only have a few suggestions.

1 - use a bookshelf up high all the way around the room, right above the door frames. A little trickier to get to, but nothing a folding foot stool couldn't handle.

2 - Someone already mentioned this, but removing the sheetrock and insulation, will gain you some significant space for built-in shelves. If you or dh are handy, this is not a difficult project. I am sure ehow or some place like that has a video on it.

3 - When we were in 700 sq. ft. with 6, we got rid of our couch. Sounds kinda strange, but we used camp chairs that could be folded up out of the way for the kids to have a big play space. They did a lot of their school work at the table, and did some on the floor in living room. My kids didnt have beds, they used sleeping bags. We rolled them up in the am and had space for other activities. These suggestions may be too extreme for you; but they are meant to get your creative juices flowing. There may be other things in your house that could be substituted with some unconventional items.

[Tarreymere]

We have seven people in a mobile home. Right now we have the bedrooms crammed with beds and dressers so we don't use them to school or keep any school stuff in the bedrooms but I am going with loft beds by next fall with desk space underneath (I have one moving out and we are rearranging).

 

We do school on our kitchen table or on the large square ottoman in our living room with the kids sitting on the floor around it, or on the couch. The kids write on clipboards or we have two lap desks they can use. We don't have and wouldn't use regular desks. We have two laptops and two desktop computers. One desktop is in the living room and one is in the kitchen. The laptops move around. We have wireless internet. I also use handheld size whiteboards pretty often.

 

I rely on our local library for most of the fiction books we use and I print out only what we are currently working on from the downloaded materials I use, so the only books we have on the shelves are nonfiction books that I couldn't get as a download. I have one four shelf bookshelf in the kitchen and a buffet that has paper, art stuff, and supplies in it instead of dishes. I have two bookcases in the living room. I have a three shelf bookshelf in the utility room for the boxes of completed work and bigger crafty stuff. That is it. I am pretty ruthless with selling things I don't think we are going to use. I also keep our crafty arty stuff and manipulatives on the shelves in boxes to keep them organized.

 

I have a sort of serving trolley with wheels that I keep the books and thinks we use daily on, and I wheel it around to where we end up at. I also put all completed papers, worksheets, ect immediately into a cardboard box on a shelf for each child so there is no paper clutter lying around and if I need to look at something later I just dig in the appropriate box. When we are done for the day I can just wheel the loaded up trolley back to its parking space in the utility room. Then, when school is over you couldn't tell that we had done anything school-like in the living room at all.

[Teachin'Mine]

Admittedly I haven't read through the replies, so this may well be a repeat. I like your idea of getting rid of the small reading table. Instead, I'd consider something like a drop leaf dining table - something with lots of table space for school work and projects that can be broken down at the end of the school day and put against a wall. In this way, the living room becomes a school room by day, and a living room in the evening or as needed.

 

The above suggestion is assuming that your husband's work area, desk, is in another room. If his desk is in the living room, then you may want to consider moving his work area to your bedroom. You'll need more space than he will for working with the kids. Just a thought.

 

Also, a great way to utilize the space you have to the max is to think vertically. When you buy or make bookshelves, don't get ones that are 40" high - have them go to the ceiling. You can put your own books up high and the children's books on the bottom, and the school books in the middle.

[mommymilkies]

I highly recommend the Expedits. We lived in 800 sq. ft with no yard, 4 kids, 4 cats, and a big dog. NOT FUN. But it is doable. Very tight and difficult, but doable.

[swellmomma]

We have 5 of us in just under 1000sq ft HOWEVER some of that smace is unuseable for anything more than storage as they were additions that were not insulated, and living in a place that gets down to -40C in the winter means you really notice the lack of it. I digress, we do our work at the kitchen table. I have learned to accept my house is never going to look like a "normal" house. We got rid of 1 couch in order to fit our shelving unit into the livingroom. All the current school books, toys, etc are kept in the livingroom. I still need to buy some bean bag chairs now that I took out the couch as the kids are mad they have to sit on the floor now. I put posters on the kitchen table under a clear tablecloth since there is no wall space to hang them. Craft supplies are stored in the basement. It is more like a cellar not truly functional but works for storage. All other books, science supplies, games, computer etc are in my room and the "middle room" as we call it (It was like a dressing room attached to my bedroom), things are cramped, and can be a bit cluttered but everything we currently have in the house we need. We will be in this house for at least the next 5 years, which will take us out of elementary for 3 of the kids (they will be high school and junior high) and into late elementary for the last. By then I will want more space so the kids have have individual desks etc but for now sharing the kitchen table is acceptable.

[King Alfred Academy]

The four of us live in 594 sq. ft. so I feel your pain! We don't have a dining room or even an eat in kitchen, so we have our dining room table in the living room...the kitchen and LR are actually one "large" (HA! I laugh at that word!) room. We also bought shelves from Target that have doors on them so we are able to shut out the homeschooling items when we want to. That has made a big difference. We store projects on top of the shelves. The bedrooms have good size closets so I put a bookshelf and dresser in one side of the boys' to store books and supplies. They also have a tall, but narrow bookcase in their room for books. :001_smile: