Keeping it all organized

[nrbeckking]

Ok so I have 3 kids (15,11,7) at home plus I am starting grad school in August. How do you keep your books organized? I am out of bookshelf space and haven't even gotten any of our stuff in for the new school year plus we will be utilizing a lot of library books to save on cost. There are 5 of us working in the same space (my wife is a teacher likely teaching virtually at least for part of this year). I have one kid using a small ikea table, one in a small ikea desk, and the other at a folding table because he was running out of room. I have zero floor space left if we want to be able to walk. Please give me some ideas before I go crazy with the mess.

[Momto6inIN]

Well, I always buy more bookshelves lol

But it doesn't sound like that's an option. Do you have storage space (attic, garage, under beds, etc) anywhere you could put things you're not using this year?

[CTVKath]

My daughter has one of the collapsible fabric bins that fits inside a cube shelf. It sits beside her on the floor when she's doing school then gets pushed under her school table when she's done with school. If you got some sort of bin or box that could store under each of their tables and get pulled out for school time, maybe that would help with part of the books?

[Lori D.]

We used heavy duty plastic crates, one per student, and all of their current books, notebooks, teacher guides, and other materials went into their bins, which were stacked in the laundry room when we were done for the day.

I'd also suggest keeping the library books separate when not actually being read -- in a basket by the front door, so they don't get mixed in with your own books.

[SounderChick]

When we had a much smaller space we found some rolling storage carts that fit under the dinner table.  

[nrbeckking]

23 hours ago, Momto6inIN said:

Well, I always buy more bookshelves lol

But it doesn't sound like that's an option. Do you have storage space (attic, garage, under beds, etc) anywhere you could put things you're not using this year?

 

We have so many bookshelves.....each kid has one, we have one in the master, built ins in the living room, and 3 in the office space. We rent and the attic and garage (detached and set away from the house) are not allowed for storage use. The garage is actually not on the part of the property we have access to. Our house is 100 years old and the closets are so tiny. My wife has acquired so much "stuff" from teaching for so long that we have old christian curricula filling up two drawers of our filing cabinet on top of full bookshelves. We have one empty cube on our cube bookshelf because the cats have claimed it and push books off in order to lay there lol.

[PeterPan]

11 hours ago, nrbeckking said:

My wife has acquired so much "stuff" from teaching for so long that we have old christian curricula filling up two drawers of our filing cabinet on top of full bookshelves.

then declutter. Probably outdated and of no $$ value anymore anyway. Price it out. If it has value, sell. If it doesn't, toss. The only thing I might keep (because I have them, haha) is the oldest editions of the BJU history texts. Not even those stupid thick binder manuals, mercy. Just the golden oldies. Everything else, get rid of. Curriculum loses its value very quickly. 

If you have books that you want to keep that are not currently being used, they can go to underbed storage. It may be time to declutter those also. Some things, again, are classic, and some things are really just a past stage and need to be let go. Storing books costs as much sometimes as the value of the books, which means you can sell and replace or sell and use the library.

[GailV]

1 hour ago, PeterPan said:

Storing books costs as much sometimes as the value of the books, which means you can sell and replace or sell and use the library.

I need to inscribe this somewhere in my house.  Possibly on the inside of my eyelids.

[annegables]

declutter. Also, we rent an under 1000sqft space for 5 of us with no other storage space, so I get you. I have figured out how to get bookshelves in the weirdest spaces. All you need is a 1ft by 2.5 ft space near a wall. Behind doors, in closets, behind end tables, etc. Where there is a will, there is a relative...

[nrbeckking]

We did the Marie Kondo thing last summer. We keep the old curriculum because believe it or not she pulls from it when tutoring students (which she gets paid to do on the side so I can't argue that) I may be able to condense and open up one or two cubes for storage BUT that doesn't take into account where I will put my own books for grad school lol. It is looking more and more like baskets under their tables will be how we have to go. If our oldest hadn't moved home from Korea because of Covid I would have the perfect space for loads more bookshelves but she has taken over the nook as a sleep space.

Edited July 20, 2020 by nrbeckking

[klmama]

Do you store extra blankets in a closet or in boxes under beds?  You could use them as extra padding on top of the mattresses, under the sheets, and store books where the blankets had been.  

[Arcadia]

My coursebooks are stored in an ottoman. My kids’ textbooks that are not currently in use are stored in stacked boxes, floor to ceiling. Our dining room is our storage area. We use our living room as a study area and dining area. I have only two kids so we use the IKEA gateleg table (https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/norden-gateleg-table-white-10423886/) as both a study table and a dining table. If we need more floor space temporarily we could just close the gatelegs of the table. 

We do have to declutter often since my home (condo) is 865sqft including a large patio space. 

[prairiewindmomma]

Ds's university books are in a backpack next to his end of the folding table set up in their bedroom.  If they were really thick, they'd be in a floor stack.  

I think ideally you would do another round of downsizing of materials.  We've used stacked banker boxes as bookcase overflow in the past, but it just extends the time with which you're ignoring the problem of having too much stuff for your space. Honestly our best homeschooling season in terms of organization was when we were relocating cross-country and everyone had only their own backpack and shared laptops.

We are choosing not to do library pickup right now for books---a number of things are available online digitally instead with our library. It's one less thing to track and manage.

 

Edited July 20, 2020 by prairiewindmomma
changed advice when I re-read poster's concern

[2_girls_mommy]

bookshelves all over the house, every room. Dining room is lined with three tall bookshelves and stores all school books and supplies. It is not your typical home decor. We also store things not in use in labeled tubs in the garage.  My teens do not have dedicated desk space. They have a shelf which is their locker. They pull down what they need, work at the kitchen table, on the couch, or wherever, then put things up. I use storage baskets to separate things out on the shelves, like a basket with all of the pens, pens, markers, each divided into separate cups within the basket. I put an extra wall shelf on a corner of the dining room over a small child's table. I have baskets on it for children's supplies. That little table is the only dedicated school area for my 6 yr old. I hang learning posters, her bulletin board, artwork, a clock, etc. over that little table to make her a separate learning center and workstation. She needs to have so many supplies on hand, a few crayons, scissors, gluestick, flashcards, etc. for every lesson, that it doesn't make sense to pull it all down separately and expect a little one to be able to put it all up, so I set up baskets on her workdesk for her. One holds her folders. In each folder she has the supplies she needs for that subject whenever possible. 

Over our piano in our small living area is a big bulletin board instead of artwork. I change it out seasonally like an elementary school bulletin board sometimes, or sometimes I have it set up with whatever is our major subject we are learning about at the time- currently ours has posters on the civil war and early state history- pictures, maps, old newspapers, etc.  I'll do nature and animal boards, birthday boards, holidays, artwork displays, a couple of times a year. 

 

[2_girls_mommy]

1 hour ago, mms said:

What everyone else said, but I will add in an old house it is not a good idea to store books in the closet, learned the hard way that there was too much dampness - even with Damp-Rid.

We have 1200 square feet for seven people. No basement and a detached garage that leaks so no storage. I’ve resigned myself to a cluttered house. We use everything we own, there’s just a lot of us and we love our books. I do declutter regularly nonetheless.

1100 SQ ft for five here. I declutter constantly, but when you live and work in every area of your home, no extra bedroom or den or sewing room, it looks a mess! Right now, just for our work if the day, I have the front room/living area destroyed with boxes of clothes and crafts spread out that I'm preparing for a consignment sale. The kitchen table as just used for an online craft class, so remnants remain. Lunch was mostly cleaned up, but there are a couple pots in the sink to wash. Dd6 has a giant toy setup going on in the living room because I've got to get rid of something in her room before the new toy can go in because a friend just brought it over. 

Most of the clutter will be at least straightened up before bed each day- crafts and schoolbooks and clean laundry put away, dishes washed. But an ongoing project like the consignment sale work is a couple weeks worth of work that I do a little each day on.  Nowhere to hide it! 

I don't love clutter, but we live and work here. It doesn't look like a magazine spread.

Edited July 21, 2020 by 2_girls_mommy

[2_girls_mommy]

9 minutes ago, mms said:

@2_girls_mommy When my girls started doing a lot of fiber art stuff and got their own sewing machines, I converted our front entrance area into a sewing nook. Nobody ever goes in and out of there anyway and so long as the door can open in case of fire, I’ve resigned myself to that unorthodox use of the space. We use slender kitchen garbage cans for storing their supplies - less space than bins that way.

My dd16 is most excited about putting up her sewing machine in her room when odd goes go college next month instead of having to get it out and put it up everytime, now that she'll get to claim all the space in their room. 🙂

[PeterPan]

2 hours ago, mms said:

I would have agreed with this pre-covid but not anymore. We were so grateful for having a good home library when the libraries closed and Amazon was delaying deliveries.

That said, overall I agree with you. Sometimes the space needs must dictate letting go of some books. It’s hard but it must be done.

I have 7k+ books and all it takes is a kid who needs something different and it’s like no books again. I snagged 2 laundry baskets of books when our library was closing.