Homeschool Room Tour

When looking for a house in Florida I wanted to find the perfect space to set up our homeschool room. We looked at homes with detached buildings and others with extra bedrooms that were perfect backdrops for a homeschool room. My homeschool room Pinterest board was overflowing with ideas. As luck would have it, the house we ended up in (because we loved the neighborhood) had a strange layout. Our homeschool room was converted from the dining room.

The Old Room

When we moved in, the dining room had a bronze chandelier, dark walls and a mirror. The goal was to try to work with as much as we could and save renovation money for places that really needed it.

The Updated Homeschool Room

The first change was to replace the light fixture. The bronze chandelier got a coat of spray paint and found a new home in our bathroom. A HEKTAR Ikea lamp went up in its place. Amazing how much a lamp can set the tone for the room.

The front hall also got a little bench and some bead-board on the half-wall. I put some bins under the bench to collect shoes and reusable bags that need to go back out to the car. The bench provides a drop zone for everything coming into the house, a place to stage things headed out of the house and somewhere to sit while you put your shoes on.

Many of the homeschool pins focused on how to use wall space in the homeschool room. I don’t have much wall space. The two walls in the room are consumed by a mirror and a window.

Instead I brought in a lot of counter space. A dresser from our old nursery and the old TV stand both found a home in our homeschool room and now serve as a place to hold the manipulatives we use daily. I also brought in one of the tall bookshelves to hold the variety of reference books that get a lot of use.

The RASKOG cart is full of art supplies the boys can use on their own. Each little also has a shelf of their school books, in the TV cabinet, that they can reach on their own.

I’m desperate to replace the small white shelf in the back corner, but haven’t decided if I need another tall bookshelf in here or if i should just organize this white shelf better. (It’s always good to leave some room for improvement.)

I ended up decorating the mirror with some maps, flags and art just to cut down on its appearance as a large mirror. The kids do spend quite a bit of time looking at themselves, so I try to seat them with their backs to the mirror.

On the plus side we’ve been able to integrate the mirror into our lessons. What better place to practice your dinosaur raaaawwwrrrr!

We used our old kitchen pub table for our homeschool table and it works great. It is hearty and has already taken quite a beating so I don’t have to worry about the arts and crafts we do on the table!

I like to have lots of our hands-on tools out on the counter so they get used. If I have to pull it out of one of the drawers the boys don’t think to use them. I try to pick up tall vases and glass jars when I see them at thrift stores because I love displaying the things we use.

I thought that having this room be so open to the living room would be a disadvantage, but it has opened up a ton of floor space. The boys can easily expand to the entrance hall and living room floor to complete puzzles or other activities.

We also freely flow into the living room for more comfortable seating.

Our Library bag has also found its home in the living room. I had it in the homeschool room but things on the table got crowded with all the library books and workbooks. Our new layout helps utilize both these open rooms during the day.

To make up for a lack of wall space I utilized the cabinet sides to hang a few self service activities. I also collected all of my materials into this one white magazine rack so they are easy to find and don’t get confused with the littles’ workbooks.

I love having a space dedicated to our school work. We have plenty of storage, so everything we need is close at hand. Yet, it all packs away so this room never feels overwhelming. When not in use as a homeschool room the boys use it for drawing and craft space and it plays host to our family game and puzzle nights. It is incredibly functional and puts learning and school at the center of our home.

I’d love to see your homeschool rooms so feel free to link to a relevant post in the comments or share other ideas you have for making your homeschool room functional all day.