Studio and Schoolroom redo

I showed you how it looked while we were in the process of the redo of our studio and school room so here's how it looks now that it's cleaned up. On the right side of the room we've placed all of the desks, the kids have some shelves to keep their desks isolated for ease of concentration and focus. As before, when we need to work together the center table is available.  My studio is on the left.  It now extends further down the room and is more functional.  

At the far end of the room we have our whiteboards and under the window the clickclack. It's great for reading time, there is storage underneath for board games and it folds into a double bed for guests.

The center table how holds the kids sewing machine (on loan from my mom) and our globe.



As I mentioned above there are bookcases/shelves between the desks to aid in the kids focusing.  On the shelves between Zuri and Mardie's desks we keep the daily use supplies like pencils, markers and colored pencils on top. Below are many of our classroom non math manipulatives and puzzles. Between Charmie and Mardie's desks I keep our greatly reduced workboxes. For this space, and where we are in our work, this simplifies things. I also keep the boys text books here. It's much simpler than keeping them with the other classroom materials. There's a lot less hunting and frustration this way.



To the right of Charmie's desk is a shelving unit that is an extension of my studio. My spinning wheels, some fiber, some yarn, some works in progress and related fiber tools are housed here in baskets.



The left side of the room (right side in this photo as viewed from Zuri's desk) has my studio. My sewing table setup hasn't changed. This was the best placement and allows for me to be able to work and keep an eye out on the kids simultaneously. Rocky and I share the desk.  As before, we work facing each other.  When I'm good and don't collect things on my desk it's plenty of space for both of us.



I cleaned out  the credenza that came with the desk and now store some of my office supplies and teacher's materials in it.  We were able to find IKEA office chairs in the "as is" room for well under 1/2 price!  Nothing is wrong with them, they were just no longer in the box.  They are very comfortable and well built.  They do not match.  We weren't trying to match them.  Rocky and I are built differently so it makes sense that we would be most comfortable in differently shaped chairs.  My chair is a wool version of the leather one we bought for the living room desk.  IKEA doesn't make it anymore sadly, but it's the most comfortable office chair I've ever used. Rocky's is green and black.



In the middle of the studio wall is my cutting/pinning/ironing table.  I've had to have one side folded down since we moved it up here.  This new configuration of the room allows me to have it all of the way open.  I have had ironing/pinning mats for a long time for this table, but the size didn't fit and they overlapped.  I finally cut and sewed them together to make one large fitted mat, vs. two ill fitting ones. Under it I have storage drawers that hold our math manipulatives, our school craft supplies, my mailing supplies and scale, as well as my cutting instruments. I'm going to be adding one more set of drawers in a few weeks and our science materials should then fit here as well.



Beyond the cutting table is a short bookcase of school resource books and a second with unused school supplies. I try to get supplies when they are affordable which isn't exactly when I need them.  I have to store them somewhere. Having them in one place allows me to keep an inventory of what we have and also itemize what we need for future sales.



The closet also got a redo.  It was full of videos/ DVD and VHS (yes we still have a VHS player), Wii games, board games (now under the clickclack), and over flow toys that we had temporarily taken out of rotation.  There was little useful organization, though Rocky had made multiple attempts.  It was a clusterscrew because it wasn't kid friendly and when opened almost always vomited its contents all over the walkway into the room.  I hated it because it was never tidy.  The solution; after we removed the items to more kid friendly storage areas was to move the remaining plastic drawers with fabric and yarn into it.  These drawers were previously on the landing at the top of the stairs and an eyesore.



I know it's A LOT to have it all in one room, optimally this would be in two separate and large rooms.  This is the modest space we do have and it all works. I feel so blessed to have this space to be used for a studio and school.  The space is very conducive to us working together. Everybody has their own space if needed yet we can come together for games or projects that require our combined efforts.  After some time, the room is becoming what I envisioned it being when we bought this home.

Boy's room redo

Our 2011 Christmas plans needed to coincide with the house goals of continuing to reduce clutter.  That kind of sounds contradictory.  Christmas presents in most cases equal clutter, but I was against that on multiple fronts.  So I had some discussions with Rocky and we decided that part of the boy's present would be something to help their room be more usable.  Rocky's parents asked what to do for the boys and I told them our plans, they asked if they could participate in them and it could be a combined gift.  We conceded,  it made sense.
So the day before Christmas Rocky and his father undertook a project to turn the boy's bunk beds that have been stacked down into loft beds.  The beds aren't anything fancy, I actually found them years ago at a Habitat For Humanity Restore for $25. We purchased new pillow top mattresses for them (they are super comfy to sleep in). and the boys had what they needed.  The dilemma was that a few months ago our bonus room became a dedicated home school and was no longer available as a playroom.  We also needed to un-stack the bunks for some other issues we had.  The result was that they had their beds and toys all in their room with little room to play or move around.  The loft beds gave them back their floor for playing and the beds for sleeping are up and out of the way.
Rocky and his dad built the loft structure and stabilizing supports under the beds.  Then in the following weeks Rocky has been constructing the additional shelves and finishing touches to make the space usable.


The train table for building, setting up vignettes, etc. fits nicely under Mardie's bed.  Rocky has put in two upper shelves, there will be one more that goes the length of the bed, under the "LEGO" display shelf for Mardie's special things.  There is an open backed shelf in front of the window and under it a very sturdy shelf that is also a window seat.  Under that shelf the LEGO's are in individual bins by color with two larger tubs for builds-in-progress. LEGO manuals are in page protectors in binders.  Now the boys can build to easier because finding the parts is facilitated by them being separated out.  They have been careful to maintain the separation, and they do not dump out the bins (that's a big no no in our household due to my AR tendencies).
In the under Train Table bins the boys keep their action figures/vehicles on one side and "weapons" on the other.  Weapons are in the Nerf variety for the most part, but there are a few pop gun pistols etc. in the mix.  These items used to be in under the bed storage bins.  You can imagine how messy the under the bed spaces would become with time.  It was a cleaning nightmare.  Now it is very easy to see where everything goes and to put it away.  It's also easy to see when things are out of place.  
The boys had an IKEA Kusk cabinet in their room before that had come from Zuri's room, but it is no longer needed in their room due to the shelves that Rocky built in under the lofts.  I will show where we put it when I blog about Zuri's room again. 

Under Charmie's bed Rocky built a bookcase.  In it the boys house most of their books.  There is some overflow into our living room bookcases.  The bookcases mirror the structure of the beds so they aren't super deep, but as the boys grow, their books get smaller and the smaller sized books fit just fine.  We moved these floor chairs in so they have a sitting area as well.  They use them to sit in when they read, they also pull them up to the train table when they are playing and use them when they are playing board games too.  

In the first photo you can see a yaffa block stacker in between the beds.  This was also reused from Zuri's room, and I have had it since college.  Yes, I know it's not the prettiest or nicest, but it's functional for their needs.  Their lamp, alarm clock, and bins of dress up costumes are housed here.  A common bin for hats and accessories and each has their own personal bin for their costumes.

The boys report that they love their new room.  I love their new room!  With time we have to decide how to finish the beds.  The wood is stained on the uppers and unfinished on the lower parts.  It works for now, though with time a uniform finish would be nice.
Also the design can be undone.  The beds can be unstacked and turned into individual twin beds or bunks whenever we choose!

This was the perfect solution for a large part of their Christmas, and also keeping in line with our new house goals of cutting the clutter!

2011 recap

 

I know it's a little late into the New Year. I had to decided to do this, and then I had to get a little help from a friend to remember how to do this. But here are some high points from 2011. I had a hard time picking just these 36 pictures. There were many many more that I wanted to include, but the mosiac maker would only allow 36 tiles. Enjoy, I know I did, looking back through images from the past year. 1. Side view, 2. DSC09149, 3. DSC09178, 4. DSC09181, 5. DSC09276, 6. DSC09295, 7. DSC09315, 8. DSC09342, 9. My little Princess, 10. DSC09378, 11. closed with swifts, 12. DSC09505, 13. Navajo ply on Vespera, 14. Avion mine, 15. We need kickstands, 16. Untitled, 17. Visit to Tom Bihn, 18. My sweet precious nephew, 19. DSC09813, 20. Apple chips, yum!, 21. Untitled, 22. Ham the rescue dog, 23. Camper and mini camper, 24. No more spider man, 25. The rough section, 26. Studio and School preview, 27. Untitled, 28. Beach ride, 29. Untitled, 30. Untitled, 31. Untitled, 32. Lunabudknit art batt spun wild, 33. Untitled, 34. New favorite spinning basket!, 35. Untitled, 36. First ride

The last of the Snow days?

We have had snow for 3 weekends in a row. About 3-5 inches each time. This is the last snow day's remnants as it melted two days later. Charmie made a snowman, his first one ever by himself.