Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been sprucing up our family room (in the back of our house) to serve as a homeschooling room for us for the fall! We’ll actually be starting our homeschool year in July, so I wanted to get things in order before then!
I’ll do another post about the curriculum we’re using, but it’s all been ordered and should be arriving this week! It’s literature based, so we’ll be spending lots of time reading together on the couch. That’s one of the many benefits of homeschooling… lots of snuggles on the couch while reading together as a family. I can’t wait!
The layout of the room hasn’t changed, but I did add window treatments, pillows, a pin board, shelving, and some decorative touches.
This is Tad’s desk (personal, not his work-from-home desk, which is upstairs). We use this computer for educational videos.
I made the plant hanger with some macrame cord leftover from another project.
This watercolor was painted by my late paternal grandmother. I love it!
Here’s a simple tutorial for making a plant hanger.
This room had cornice boards on the windows, so I removed the drapes and added a new fabric.
I didn’t take pictures of the process, but it was very simple. I just cut the fabric in half lengthwise and used iron-on hem tape to him the bottom and side edges. I ironed the sides so it would have a nice crease at the corners. Then I pinned the fabric to the top of the cornice board using upholstery pins. I saved a lot of money doing it this way, and I’m happy with how it turned out. If you don’t have existing cornice boards, this tutorial could help you build some.
The fabric I used is by Waverly and I found it at Walmart, if that helps you track it down!
I also made a coordinating pillow using the leftover fabrics from the window treatments and the pin board. It’s a simple envelope pillow (similar to this). The yellow pillow cover is from here and I found the turquoise pillow at Target (dollar section).
I wanted to make a pin board so we could hang up our Scripture memory verses.
I used a large canvas and covered it with quilt batting (using a staple gun). Then I stretched fabric (Waverly, from Walmart also) around and stapled it as well.
The entire room isn’t dedicated to school. We also have an elliptical, an ironing board, the vacuum, all our beach/pool stuff, mason jars, and a few other miscellaneous things on the other side of the room.
We installed simple shelving on two walls to house books and learning resources. Like I said, we haven’t gotten our curriculum for this year yet, but some of it will go on these shelves.
To make the shelves, we just bought pine boards in the width we wanted. At Lowe’s they’ll cut it to the exact length you need for free! Very convenient. We bought metal brackets and screws as well. I measured and marked where to put the brackets, and Tad screwed them into the shelves. We worked together to hang them on the wall. It only took a couple of hours to hang all six shelves. You could sand and paint them or even stain them if you wanted a different look!
The other set of shelves is above the new desk. Vera will not be doing a ton of seat work, but she will need a place to practice her handwriting.
This set of shelves currently has a lot of school supplies, learning activities, paper, coloring books, and art supplies. We’ll do a big stock-up on school supplies when the sales start this summer. I really love our new pencil sharpener! And we’re all excited about this jumbo pack of crayons.
The bins on these shelves are from the Dollar Tree, the magazine holder (to hold paper and stickers) is from IKEA, the photo boxes are from Michael’s, and the turquoise tub is from Target (dollar section).
We got a new CD player from Walmart, and I know we’ll enjoy listening to music and stories during our day!
One of my friends is moving, so I bought this chair from her when she was having a yard sale. I painted it turquoise! (I took my curtain fabric to Lowe’s and had them color match a sample can of paint to it.)
Theodore was my little buddy while I took pictures of the room this morning!
I have a few other little places I put up art and pictures. This is the little bit of wall next to the doorway to the kitchen.
I love this “Be Joyful” print from True Cotton (one of my favorite Etsy shops)!
I hope you enjoyed this little tour of our homeschooling room! I look forward to sharing more about our curriculum choices soon.
