Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

Several weeks ago school was not going very well at all. MiltaryKid would float from room to room, trying desperatly to find a spot to do math, or spelling, or writing. When he would try to work at the same table as ScienceKid, ScienceKid would yell and complain, tell him to go elsewhere, and little school work was accomplished. I did not care for the school mess in the family room AND the living room AND the kitchen AND the dining room. Desperate for help I called in my HS friends, Kristi and Terri to brainstorm how I could rearrange; how I could organize this crap so that we might school in peace; how to not have a house littered with HS stuff all over the place.

I wanted all the HS stuff in one room. I did not want to send the boys off to their rooms, nor did I want a school desk in their rooms. Face contact is important to me plus I need to be able to keep an eye on ScienceKid and help him to stay focused on school work.

So Terri, Kristi and I drank coffee, and chatted, and brainstormed. Suddenly Terri, aka Organizational Queen, noted that a workarea all along the one dining room wall would look really cool. I listened, I could see it working. The following day I measured, drew up my plans, and chatted with another friend about my plans. I ignored her comments and went forward with Terri’s and Kristi’s ideas. I do not have dining room furniture and I don’t see us obtaining any such pieces anytime in the near future.

This is MiltaryKid in front of his new desk. Terri’s plan for a workarea wall; a bookcase, a desk with drawers, bookcases perpendicular to the wall to act as a visual barrier between the boys, a desk for ScienceKid, and another bookcase can really be seen in this photo. Each boy has a bulletin board over his desk, his own lamp, and his own trash can.

We still have a hs table but now it is in front of our east facing bay window.
Continuing around the room; for now this little corner is our paper and pen storage area. I’d love to find a little corner unit to hold the PC but so far I haven’t had any luck finding that.
From the little corner we have a doorway into the foyer and then this area. Yes, that’s a full 8′ air hockey table DH purchased for the family for Christmas. I told him he wouldn’t be able to get it downstairs to the basement, but he purchased it anyway, so here it sits. We do enjoy playing it and there’s plenty of room to play anytime. We have a few more bookcases and some fun posters the boys picked out.
For now we have some milk crates stashed in this corner for all the library books we bring home every week. And so we have made our little tour around the school room.

I love the room. All the HS stuff is out of the living room, AND the Kitchen, AND the family room, AND into its place in our new school room. Now I just have to patch all the holes from our bulletin boards and the dings from the bookcases in the living room walls, then I can paint the living room. But that will be in another season.

PS—the room has worked really well, the boys still work on the floor in other rooms or we cuddle together on the living room sofa for reading time, but we all are not wasting time looking for their books, and stuff is not all over our home.