New house, homeschool room or no?

[Emagine]

Good Morning,

 

We are looking to move closer to family for many, many reasons. This will be an out of state move. We have the chance to build and looking at a few floor plans from local builders there. One thing I keep bouncing around with is having a Homeschool Room.

 

In our current home we have the extra bedroom and it is a colorful, fun learning place. In the one floor plan we love there is not really a giving space to make a 'room'. I think I am ok with it. My oldest is not fond of working near my youngest because he has major ADHD issues. Once computer work is complete he will vanish. My youngest however loves having his school space and his other living spaces apart.

 

Both are very visual and we have posters, whiteboards and such. I do not like the idea of those scattered all over the house. I keep looking for a way to use these posters in our lessons with out the roll up, pull out method. I have also not found a place to laminate the bigger ones. My kids will stare at maps forever.

 

I keep picturing some sort of old 'shade' product that I can store and pull out as needed. This would require something huge to store etc..

 

Will I regret not having the dedicated space?

[Jess4879]

We've homeschooled in the kitchen and in our current house we have a school room. I, personally, LOVE my dedicated room for school stuff. Daily we spread around the house, and work in multiple rooms, but all our books and supplies are in one room and I like that. I think it's completely do-able to not have an actual school room, but if I was building and got to pick, I'd add in that extra space. You know your families needs best though and how much space you need for books and supplies.

[Alte Veste Academy]

In my old house, I had a homeschool room or not depending on whether I put my boys in the same room. There was a time we used the 4th bedroom as a schoolroom (and sometimes as a playroom as well). Otherwise, school was done in the dining room. I didn't like having a schoolroom removed from life (with the bedrooms, all the way down the hall, away from the living areas). I didn't like having school in the dining room, mostly because I got tired of having to clear off the table. I felt like I was constantly tidying up school stuff just to pull it out again.

 

In our new house, I think what we have is ideal. There are two living/dining areas, both off the kitchen. I use one of them entirely for school, with tables and bookshelves/buffet in the dining section and a sectional, whiteboard, storage armoire in the living area. These are homey areas, where we live and do school. I love not having to tidy up for dinner. We just go in the other room. One of the most important reasons the space is so usable and enjoyable is that it is central to the house and right off the kitchen.

 

So, that would be my answer. If I could plan one, I would, but it would have to be perfectly located. I would do a little suite like that, a second LR/DR combo off the kitchen, or (I think I would love this also) a big sunny room off the kitchen at the back of the house.

[Mandylubug]

we currently have a large eat in kitchen area where we can fit a large table that seats 8. We do all our studies there because that is our only option. When we were considering a move, we loved the idea of a formal dining room with an eat in kitchen still large enough for our actual meals and table that seats 8. That would give seats in the kitchen, in the dining room and some could be spread out in the living room and bedrooms if need be. So, if it was me, I would be searching for a formal dining room with space for a whiteboard and book shelves, etc... I used to think I didn't want all my schooling out in the open but that is our life. We don't always have visitors and those that come understand the posters, whiteboard, etc. I personally would not do well with a spare bedroom turned into learning space because it would be away from all of the action.

[Eagle]

We do not have a dedicated room and as a consequence have school stuff *everywhere*. Even if we wanted to do school in other rooms, I would love a homeschool room for storage of all the stuff.

[Ariston]

I have a small house and we have at times used the kitchen, a nook in the kids bedroom, part of my husbands office, the sofa, etc.... I find it very annoying!! I spend many, many hours dreaming of a house with a dedicated school room. I mean its doable, its just really annoying. There's no wall space, as you mentioned, and storage becomes a problem too. So personally, I would say yes, you will regret it :) Unless you are getting some other amazing thing in the floor plan that makes it worth it...

[Garga]

If there was anyway to have a homeschool room, I would want one. Can a dining room be converted into a homeschool room? Or a (pretty, well-lit with outdoor light) basement?

[UrbanSue]

We have a pretty small apartment right now and we homeschool in the dining room which is also the library. Our current kitchen is too small to eat in so it is kind of a pain to completely clean up for every meal. But I do like that the "school room" is definitely a main part of the house.

 

In a couple years we will probably take over the second floor of our house as well (we own the whole thing and rent the second floor now). Then we will have a separate dining room so the current one will remain the school room/library. But it will still be in the main flow of things, if that makes sense. I don't think I'd like a room tucked away as would be the case with an extra bedroom or something.

 

In new construction could it work to use the formal dining room as a school room if the kitchen dining area is nice? Or, vice versa, always eat in the dining room and use the traditional kitchen area as a school area?

[Emagine]

Yep, I think I would. It has worked good now. The 5th bedroom is downstairs and was suppose to be a guest area. Right off the main living areas. It has worked. I did not think about where all the stuff would go. Will be working on that now in the plans.

 

Thx :)

[HS Mom in NC]

My schoolroom (an extra bedroom) is for school supplies and music practice. My kids have homeschooled all over the house for various reasons at various times and the room where we keep all our school stuff has been moved from one room to another in the same house over the years. We have 2,000 books in our house so every bedroom, the loft, and the schoolroom are covered in wall to wall book shelves covered in books. We have a craftroom (the half of the kitchen other people put a table and chairs in) for craft supplies.

[ByGrace3]

I love love love my school room. We don't always "school" in there-- we use the schoolroom, the couch, the floor, the kitchen table, the playground...;) but I love having the schoolroom when we need it and having all of our stuff localized in there,

 

Could I live without it? Sure...but if I had the choice I wouldn't...if I were building a house, I would definitely include it.

[Mom in High Heels]

We had a school room (our 3rd bedroom), but had to give it up when Han Solo came along. I so miss having a dedicated room! I would absolutely go with a house that has a room for schooling.

[Mommy22alyns]

If I had the chance, I'd definitely have a homeschool room!

[Erin]

The house we were in when we started homeschooling had an office. It was actually a porch that had been finished with windows all the way around three sides. Beautiful space!

Personally, I wouldn't be able to devote space to JUST homeschooling. But homeschooling/office/perhaps guest room... that's an option I'd consider.

[Guest]

We have a library, but not a schoolroom like you see on all these blogs. I think it is wise to have a dedicated space for all your stuff, but we prefer to do school in our open kitchen/family room. It's nice when one child is not finished that the rest of us can all go on with life (make lunch, do laundry, etc.) and that child is not stuck by himself in a room. (We did that and it didn't work well.)

[Arboreal TJ]

We are currently in the process of building. Our floor plan has a formal dining room. I had them spec out French pocket doors instead of a large opening (so i can hide the mess) and won't have them install all the fancy schmancy chair rails and crown molding. This will be our temporary school room. Our floor plan had 300 sq ft for a 2nd floor bonus room, our builder managed to enlarge that space to 900 sq ft! This space will be unfinished initially but eventually I plan to turn it into my dream school room.

 

 

[Mom2TheTeam]

I would have a school room that is centrally located like someone else above said....I would want it off my kitchen if I had my choice. We have plenty of space for a school room, but don't have one because it just doesn't work out well right now. The school room is currently a playroom or an office. We could take either room if we really wanted to do away with the playroom or office, but we don't want to. We choose to do school in the kitchen for now because it works out better with our littles, but I do keep most of our stuff in the office. That would be the school room where we don't actually school. LOL. We are going to partially finish our basement very soon and that will be a schoolroom/playroom. I can't wait because the littles will be contained and out of trouble while we do school with the olders (who are 7 and 2 5 year olds ;)) However, in the long run, I'd like to be able to clean up or cook or whatever to stay nearby while they do something independent. But, that won't work if the school room is in the basement by itself. So, long term, this isn't what I want. I will turn the playroom into a school room in about 5 years. I really can't wait for that!

[Tanikit]

We set up a homeschooling room this year and while we school in all areas of the house (and some stuff lies in all the rooms of the house too) I am finding that more and more we are using this room as it is just more convenient - I like being able to put posters on the walls and the kids love being able to stick their work on the wall when its done. I suppose we use our room for work done at a table - arts, crafts, painting and writing, while anything involving the computer or reading - me reading to them or my DD to me - we do in the lounge or bedrooms. If I had the choice I would always choose to have a separate room for it.

[SebastianCat]

We use the formal living room of our house for a school room. I LOVE it. If for no other reason than the storage. We have TONS of books. :)

[kiwik]

I don't know what the houses are like over there but a lot of the new of the plans type stuff here has a kitchen, dining, family living room combo with a formal dining room that opens off the family room and the main entrance hall. If you had something like this you could use the formal living room and keep the doors open when you wanted to keep the connection (usually have pocket doors between them).

[Mom2OandE]

We use our small dining room as a homeschool room. We recently found a new build with a larger bonus space that would be the perfect school room. I would love to build it! I say if you can add a space do it. You can always repurpose the space but its harder to add after the fact.

[Susie in MS]

Personally, I would love a mini library room with a bean bag chair in the corner and a puter desk on the side. Keeping everything (maps, boards, books, etc) all in one place would be cool. You would not have to stay there if you didn't want to, but it would be nice to have if you needed peace. I would love a place to close the door and block out a chatter box dh when we are trying to get school done. I would have a SCHOOL IN CESSION - DO NOT DISTURB! sign on the door.

[boscopup]

I am so glad I could finally move my youngest into the big boys' room so his old room could be turned into a school room. it's nice having one place for all the stuff. School occurs all over the house, but we use that school room daily.

 

We'll see how long the sharing of a room lasts between 3 boys. :D

[TraceyS/FL]

WE started off here in the converted garage - but really it ended up being to cut off from the rest of the house. OUr living room is huge, and has a "alcove" type of area off of it. That was originally going to be my library area with a comfy chair. But now that I am HSing again it has become the library area with a "project table" in it. There are enough areas to stash stuff - minus the wall space. We can't change the fact that we have books and have this great space for "playing". SOmeday I will reach a point I can have pictures.

 

But, I'd have to have a "spot" for everything even without a room. That might be a library or an office (i'd lean toward library), but I wouldn't buy/build without that extra space if at all possible.

[LEK]

We had a school room in this current house but it never got used except for storage, I have now taken that over as my study/craft room as I have found that working at the dining table works best for us (dining, living and kitchen all in one). We are moving soon and although will be 2 spare rooms (an extra bedroom and a formal lounge) we will not be making one of them into a dedicated school room. Again we will have a dining, living, kitchen (and playroom!) combo with a huge dining room - we will use the dining room for school and I will use one wall of the playroom for storage of all school materials. It works for us as I like to be able to cook etc while they are working and doing their craft and I like the school area to be in the centre of the house, having that seperate school room felt cut off from the house.

[Um_2_4]

We use a 1st floor bedroom (with a bath and the laundry room next door) as our Library and our schoolroom. We don't so 100% of our work in there, but close. I LOVE having stuff in ONE room. Even if DS9 wants to take some books upstairs to read. I HSed before in a 800 sq ft 2bd apt and DH HATED that school stuff was EVERYWHERE: Kid's room, hall closet, dining room, a free standing pantry in the kitchen and in the cabinets in the Living room. (I tried to keep it out of our bedroom, but wasn't 100% successful on that one LOL!)

So even if your style changes over the years and you end up using it more as a "teacher's lounge" and library, as a homeschooler I think it can make life MUCH easier.

We are looking at buying an apt when we move to a big city and I have already put the requirement that it has 4 bedrooms, plus a separate room that could be used for studying. My dream is to have 1 of the rooms as a library and computer lab and the other room for each to have a desk (including a teacher's desk) and instruction to take place in there.

[prairiewindmomma]

It's all about flow and storage for me. The schoolroom has to be close to the laundry and schoolroom. There has to be a quiet space for my kid with attention issues but also play areas for the baby/preschooler. Beyond that, it's storage and table workspace. We've had the schoolroom/playroom layout, the schoolroom in the library layout, and the school at the dining room table layout. All have worked at different points in our journey. Personally, I like the flexibility and we are in a large enough home that I can easily switch primary school spaces easily (and have, when I have been on bedrest and unable to do stairs).

 

Ideally, if we were building and I had to downsize, I'd have a very large dining room with a large table and lots of covered storage and an adjoining family room full of books, comfy seats, and place to sprawl.

[happypamama]

I really like having a homeschool room. Do we always do our schoolwork in the schoolroom? Nope. We do schoolwork all over the house, depending on where I am and who needs my help, or who needs some quiet space, or whatever. But we keep workspace for each child in the schoolroom, plus my desk (aka organization central), computer/printer, current homeschool books, art supplies, workboxes, etc. It's nice not to have to worry about clearing the table for meals when the kids are still working on something, or vice versa.

[ksr5377]

We tried the schoolroom in the basement and then the one onthe second floor using a spare bedroom, those both failed. Our house now has a large mudroom off the kitchen, huge really. That's our schoolroom. There's lots of light, it's right off the kitchen, I can do laundry there, plus it's big enough for two full size desks, 3 bookshelves, coat hooks and even a small reading chair for the kids. And the best thing about it, is that unless you come into the house that way, my home doesn't scream "We Homeschool!" if you walk through the front door.

[mommyto4QT]

I prefer a dedicated homeschool space. Currently, we are using a 2nd floor bonus room as a homeschool room/playroom. That tends to work well for us.

If nothing else, make sure you have wall space for bookcases!

[Coco_Clark]

We have a 700 sq foot main floor, with a 600 sq foot finished attic (converted to two bedrooms). Which is all to say that no, we don't have a dedicated homeschool space. We homeschool in our teeny kitchen/living room. We *could* put all three kids and all their things in one attic room and use the other for schooling...But it would require getting rid of many of their toys, and I don't think the constant up and down the stairs would be very livable. in the end I enjoy the boys having a dedicated bedroom and toy room.

 

If building I would probably opt to have some sort of small library/homeschool space off of my living area. I would love to have things a bit out of sight- learning does get messy and putting everything away for meals is tedious. Extra storage space would be convenient. But I also have to say I've found a lot of joy in our rather cramped situation. We are always together, because there is really nowhere to escape! The stove is visible from the table, which is visible from the couch, ect. It forces us to learn to get along, ,and to work cooperatively. I realistically can only fit two or maybe three things on the limited wall space, and while we have many bookcases spread around the house and a hall closet devoted to currently out of circulation materials, we only have one 6 foot bookcase in the "school area" - this encourages me to really define what we "need". I think if I had more space I'd buy more stuff, without necessarily being a better teacher.

[Dahliarw]

I dream of having an actual school room (I'd love to have a large bonus room that could be used as a combo school/toy/craft space for my stuff room). Right now we use our formal living room for a school room. It works, but it's the first thing people see when walking in the house, so not so ideal.

[Jayne J]

Rather than a homeschool room, I'd have a library. It would open up tons of space in other rooms, clean up our cluttery looking wall space, and hide all the "stuff" that homeschooling entails. Then I'd assign a shelf in a clost or pantry in a central living area for daily use stuff, and school in the dining room/living room/kitchen.

 

(I currently have our kitchen pantry holding our daily stuff, and the rest scattered on various shelves throughout the house. I hate how it clutters up every room--I am including things like board games, math manipulatives, and art supplies. We are moving soon, and I am hoping my dream scenario, outlined above, will finally happen. :) )

[...................]

I think it would be great to have a place to hang visuals, store books, crafts, stuff, junk white board, etc. etc.

 

NOw, in reality we'd still end up spreading out a bit, but it would at least contain all the junk.

[momtoamiracle]

I have a schoolroom and don't use it. I like having my stuff in one place tho so I got a tv armoir and put everything in it and put it in the dining room. We usually work in there anyway. I can put it all away and close the doors. I have thousands of books on bookcases that line my hallway. I don't need a room for those anyway.

 

 

I have one child tho and it causes us no difficulties to not have a dedicated schoolroom. We made th living and dining room a huge area for him to play in.

 

 

If I had more kids I'd probably need a schoolroom more cause I'd have more stuff going on. But I like the compactness of what I have going now. Love being able to open the door to the cabinet and see everything exactly in its place.

[heritagelearningacademy]

We have an extra bedroom which we use as a school room/office/craft room. LOL With 3 children at very different stages, we end up spread out in our kitchen, dining room, school room, living room. It just varies. But, I too love having a SPACE for my things.

 

We are looking at a move this fall and one of my must haves is storage for all the school stuff. That may mean an extra bedroom, or an extra living space. But, I like my stuff in one space.

[lmrich]

My schoolroom is on my sun porch off the kitchen. On early winter mornings we just move our books etc to the connecting kitchen. It is bright and cheerful.

 

I teach classes and tutor in ther for income. I have seating for 12 and a huge white board and tv. So it is great that I can leave supplies etc out and ready for a lab or for today math camp at 1:00.

[Sue in WI]

We recently bought a house, and place for a school room was on the top of my list. We found a house with an open area on the 2nd floor. It will be our schoolroom, with room for toys for my dd.

[Emagine]

Glad to see this bumped. We have not sold yet. We are still eyeballing having a room though. :)

[Guest]

I wanted to update. 2 months ago I posted that we didn't use a school room. I have since decided that our loft area is going to be our school area this year. Honestly, the only reason I decided to go with a "school room" was because I missed my huge whiteboard. I am not one to have a whiteboard hanging in our kitchen. ;)

[ocelotmom]

My dream house would have a rumpus room and a library, both of which could serve as homeschooling spaces. The rumpus room would be visually and audibly separated from the rest of the house, with the kitchen in between, and maybe a living/dining room with a door that can be closed. It would have padded floors, indoor play equipment, toys, media-watching stuff, maps and so forth on the walls, and everything else potentially unsightly.

 

The other side of the house would be the quiet side, with bedrooms and the library and so on (having a quiet side is important to me since I will likely end up working night shift eventually). The people who want total quiet, or just separate, could go work in the library (which could also serve as a guest room).

[lea1]

We built our house about 2 years ago and, so far, it is working out really well for us. We have an open floor plan for the living room, kitchen and dining rooms. We have a huge island in the kitchen that can seat 5. There is a double door off of the kitchen/dining rooms to a family room / library / play room / future school room. This multipurpose room is currently a play room but it also has one huge wall of built in bookshelves so it also provides storage for much of our homeschool stuff.

 

My sons are 7.5 YO and are half way through 2nd grade. During this phase of life, I have to work with them for pretty much everything and their written work really needs to be done when they are sitting at the counter/table. We do all of this type of work at our large island. We sit together on the living room couch to read and, when I work one-on-one with one of them, the other one will go into our master bedroom (just around the corner from the living room) and shut the door to read.

 

I planned the multipurpose room to eventually be our schoolroom and I still believe we will use it like that a lot in the future. When the boys are older and no longer have as many toys, we will move a big sectional in that room and possible a table and use it also. I love that we have so many options. We actually use to do our written work at our kitchen table but it is very rustic wood and has cracks and uneven boards in it so it does not work well for writing. I hope to replace it sometime so we can also have that as an option for written work.

 

The other option, when the boys are older, is their upstairs bedrooms. They each have a nice size bookcase in their room and, when they get older, we will make sure they have a decent desk there too.

 

ETA: We have a large double-sided chalkboard on rollers that we can move around to where needed. I also have that lazy-susan-type book/file/everything holder thing that so many people here have gotten from Office Depot. Almost all of the things we need to use day-to-day fit in it so I just move it to the island in the morning and move it back when we are finished. The boys each have a drawer in one of those little plastic/metal drawer-tower things that hold all of their pencils, markers/colored pencils, c-rods, etc. so they just get their drawer when we start and put it back when we finish. Set-up and clean-up is very quick and easy.

[My3girls]

I work from home. My office is our loft. It's small, but I have managed to fit 2 desks, a book case, and my treadmill in there. My dds alternate at one desk, while I am working at the other, to do their "homework" and are able to ask me questions between calls. Our lessons are all done after work downstairs, though, on the couch when dh is gone and in my bedroom or the dining room when he is home. The white board is in the dining room. I'm looking for a cheap easel so that it can be put away for company. I haven't gotten big wall maps yet, but I am hoping to find nicer framable ones so that I can treat them as art and hang them throughout the house. Lol. I also have my eye on a hutch/ shelving unit for the dining room to store supplies in. Right now, it's all here there and everywhere. We just started, though, so we don't have a terribly lot yet, and most of our books are on the kindles. As for their art work, the refrigerator and magnets work well. :-)

 

I would love a sunroom off the kitchen or dining room or a formal dining room to use as some others have mentioned. That would be a dream come true. Unfortunately, there is no move in our even remotely near future. Ahh well...