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Erin
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| Posted: April 18 2013 at 9:30pm | IP Logged
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Maryan, glad you liked the pics, I've been deliberately picking what I think would work.
After writing I got thinking more about the cube bookcases, and am making an ammendment. The pics I see with lots of little things and cube boxes would bother me, but ALL cube boxes would work. I keep being drawn to them.
A long time ago I made fabric buckets and I've been pondering how to make the cube boxs myself, would save lots of $$s.
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Erin
Faith Filled Days
Seven Little Australians
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Aagot
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| Posted: April 19 2013 at 1:04am | IP Logged
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I really love Ann's learning space and it certainly looks real. A lot of books and children using the area. It looks neat, organized but inviting. Not so perfect that you would not want to use it. However, it looks really big. Mind you, I would love to have a room that big but I would also, likely be able to keep it looking so nice. A place for everything and everything in its place. Then again, maybe I would just fill it up 
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: April 19 2013 at 7:09am | IP Logged
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Aagot wrote:
I really love Ann's learning space and it certainly looks real. A lot of books and children using the area. It looks neat, organized but inviting. Not so perfect that you would not want to use it. However, it looks really big. Mind you, I would love to have a room that big but I would also, likely be able to keep it looking so nice. A place for everything and everything in its place. Then again, maybe I would just fill it up
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I agree. Large spaces can handle more "mess" without feeling cluttered.
Erin wrote:
| I've been saving pics and ideas for a learning centre and library for a while now. One thought I keep coming back to though is, as a visual person for me to be serene I suspect I need alot of the clutter hidden behind doors. So while I love the cube boxes look, would it be kept as need as the pics or would I be driven mad? |
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I think that the ideal system is the crazy expensive one from Ballard that has cabinets, drawers, AND cubbies/fitted baskets. Though, I do like the idea of a few open cubbies for shelved books because their size means only having a few "contained" books. I don't think I would use the open shelves to hold the jars of pencils and such, though, maybe a giant jar of shells or something simple could work.
After dreaming of dh recreating the Ballard system, though, just this week I saw a buffet at the local habitat for humanity restore that dh bought and is likely bringing home today. It has drawers (lovely, hefty, old drawers that glilde like a dream!) and a couple of cabinets, and it will fit nicely under our giant world map and is tall enough to hold some seasonal or liturgical displays out of kid reach.
After ooing and ahing over beautiful Montessori-esque displays where everything is accessible, I've decided I'm a drawer and cabinet gal in practice. I'm simply not disciplined enough to maintain items on display, and believe me, my children are not hindered by the cabinet and box barriers to the markerrs, scissors, etc  , though, I do think it keeps the toddler from getting ideas about the items as often. I do still have the things I WANT him to play with out in the open, I've just severely purged and limited so that it is stuff that is easy to put away neatly.
I do see how the open environment in the OP is meant to inspire kids, and I think it would, but I must admit that there is such a thing as too much inspiration in my own home setting! I get oveerwhelmed with all the "signs" of creativity sometimes
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: April 19 2013 at 8:16am | IP Logged
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Here is the crazy expensive cubby storage system from Ballard that seems ideal to me. You can scroll through the "more images" to see many of the configurations. I'm not sure how you could get this without the price tag short of building your own, but it seems so functional and versatile to me!
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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SallyT
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| Posted: April 19 2013 at 9:18am | IP Logged
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Those are beautiful! I'd love to have even a narrow wall of cubbies (like between the window and the closet door in our study) to hold
1. each child's school bin (each of my younger children has a plastic milk crate for his/her books and supplies for the year. Right now they live on the floor
2. art supplies
3. things like the microscope and field glasses
4. things like math manipulatives, smaller "schooly" board games . . . all that stuff that doesn't fit easily or neatly into either an open-top bin (small items get lost in the shuffle) or on a conventional bookshelf (too wide, and I need the conventional bookshelves for books).
Already I'm having a little brainstorm: we have in the study this big, deep cabinet that we had made when we lived in an apartment and still had a television, VCR, and sound system which we wanted to close away from view, back in the days when televisions weren't flat. It is an awkward piece of furniture because it is so deep, but we haven't yet been able to make ourselves get rid of it. Now I'm mulling taking the cabinet doors off, top and bottom, and seeing if we can't contrive some cubby-like shelving inside. Hmmm . . .
In general I'd say I'm in Lindsay's camp of not being able to maintain things on display, mostly because . . . well, things get used by children who don't care that it's a display and even when they tidy up don't restore the room to the kind of pristine state that I would be envisioning. And I don't want to be the curator of the museum room. My back porch, for instance, is awash in seashells, birds' nests, deer bones, and dumped camping gear . . . it occurs to me that glass cannisters would save at least the shelves out there! Big cannisters of birds' nests and deer bones and seashells, rather than a jumble, would truly revive what started out to be the "nature porch," before it turned into the all-purpose mudroom/dumping ground outside the kitchen door.
But returning to the room: I do find that as the kids get older I want to have more things out where they will notice and make use of them, now that they can make use of them without massive amounts of adult supervision. It seems to me that that would help them to take the lead in explorations. I *want* them to take the field glasses out to the tree house to watch birds, for example, but neither they nor I will think of it if the field glasses aren't in our line of vision. I guess here is where my old inner unschooler kicks in -- I'm looking for a room set up on the strewing model, but at least semi-neatly and definitely purposefully. My youngest children now are the age of my oldest child when we started homeschooling, and I find myself wanting to return, with these children, to something like the more open-ended mode of our schooling in those days, with a space arranged to facilitate that.
If that makes sense! I know my last post was totally disjointed!
Sally
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Maryan
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| Posted: April 19 2013 at 9:50am | IP Logged
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Erin wrote:
| A long time ago I made fabric buckets and I've been pondering how to make the cube boxs myself, would save lots of $$s. |
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I like your buckets Erin! I'm hoping this summer to make some of these using Huggies wipes boxes for cubes.
CrunchMom wrote:
After dreaming of dh recreating the Ballard system, though, just this week I saw a buffet at the local habitat for humanity restore that dh bought and is likely bringing home today. It has drawers (lovely, hefty, old drawers that glilde like a dream!) and a couple of cabinets, and it will fit nicely under our giant world map and is tall enough to hold some seasonal or liturgical displays out of kid reach.
After ooing and ahing over beautiful Montessori-esque displays where everything is accessible, I've decided I'm a drawer and cabinet gal in practice. I'm simply not disciplined enough to maintain items on display, and believe me, my children are not hindered by the cabinet and box barriers to the markerrs, scissors, etc , though, I do think it keeps the toddler from getting ideas about the items as often. I do still have the things I WANT him to play with out in the open, I've just severely purged and limited so that it is stuff that is easy to put away neatly. |
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The Ballard system is neat, Lindsay! I like to look at other systems to see how I can tweak it.
I am piecemeal making a built-in in my dining room. So far I have file cabinets. It's still a work in progress towards making it a built in. I wait for various items to go on a 20% off sale and then add a coupon and free shipping. They were still very, very expensive. But I wanted something to last. I want to put bookshelves on top, and a desk console and cabinet in the middle. Perhaps just by putting a butcher top across the whole span? We'll see. It will be piece by piece as I save up. So far I've had the file cabinets for a year and they have been fabulous.
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Maryan
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A Lee in the Woudes
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Aagot
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| Posted: April 19 2013 at 10:03am | IP Logged
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Nice Filing cabinets! That is not what I picture when I hear that word. 
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Maryan
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| Posted: April 19 2013 at 11:00am | IP Logged
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Aagot wrote:
| Nice Filing cabinets! That is not what I picture when I hear that word. |
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Thanks! I had a tall cabinet from Staples that when I bought them, I knew had a vertical twin. But then... Staples discontinued those file cabinets. I was sooo sad because they were wood and were only $110, so I hunted around and found these. Much pricier, but well made.
To throw another inpsiration link... Pottery barn is always my inspiration... and then I look and look to find it cheaper or try to build it ourselves.
It's kind of like Lindsey's idea of combination of hidden and open!
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Maryan
Mom to 6 boys & 1 girl: JP('01), B ('03), M('05), L('06), Ph ('08), M ('10), James born 5/1/12
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10 Bright Stars
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| Posted: April 19 2013 at 1:03pm | IP Logged
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O.K. (joke coming) But, what is the nice thing about this homeschool room? That there aren't any actual kids in it! My kids would tear down the clipboards. Use all the accessible markers to write on the walls, couch and pretty pillows. The pretty pillows would have been jumped on and on the floor. Need I go on? And, did I mention that I have pretty well-behaved kids, but talk about temptation!!!!!  I would be afraid to sit down. Down-right GORGEOUS though! Got to give her that!!! I would love to go there and do my lesson planning and read CM books though!! Might be a good project for a mom's retreat!!  I love to look at the hs rooms pinterest boards too. Everything is so lovely!
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Isabelle and Sophia 8,
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Maryan
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| Posted: April 19 2013 at 1:53pm | IP Logged
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Too true! I would definitely need to make the "other" room too... you know with the padded walls and the balls, so that whenever we need to wiggle (in the winter), they can go to the padded room to be as crazy as they like. Otherwise, they would never sit still in the peaceful room!
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Maryan
Mom to 6 boys & 1 girl: JP('01), B ('03), M('05), L('06), Ph ('08), M ('10), James born 5/1/12
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Kimct
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| Posted: April 20 2013 at 8:21am | IP Logged
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Or....you can go to the padded room.
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: May 01 2013 at 12:08pm | IP Logged
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Okay. I'm not saying it is anymore "down to earth" than some of the spaces I posted before, but how DREAMY would this home office space be as a homeschool room with a few modifications? Obviously, it needs the additions of the educational elements and a touch of "pretty," but the foundational elements seem just about perfect in my book!
(assuming there is a sofa or loveseat nearby )
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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Maryan
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| Posted: May 01 2013 at 12:40pm | IP Logged
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I love it!! :)
And I missed Kim's comment!!
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Maryan
Mom to 6 boys & 1 girl: JP('01), B ('03), M('05), L('06), Ph ('08), M ('10), James born 5/1/12
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SallyT
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Wow, that is nice. I don't know why I find this white room less chilly than the other . . .
I like that the elements -- shelves, baskets, cubbies -- are flexible and utilitarian (while also attractive -- I like the natural materials and wouldn't really feel the need for further prettiness myself). This could be a room where kindergarten things could happen and toddlers could be; it could be a high-school learning room; it could be a mix of those things. All you'd do would be to add to/change the contents of the shelves and baskets as kids grew up. Also, nothing seems gratuitous or added for its cuteness rather than its function. I love cute, but cute just becomes clutter if it doesn't somehow pull its weight in flexible function (our study, in its current arrangement, would be the "clutter" object lesson here . . . I only wish there were more cuteness). I just love the shelving/countertop/cubby arrangement on that one wall . . . sigh . . .
Yet again, I've got the study on my list of summer projects, but this time I really want to mean business.
Sally
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CrunchyMom
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I think it is the wicker of the baskets that really adds the needed warmth to an otherwise sterile space.
And I think that a botanical poster/print, a globe, a stand atlas or map would be all the "pretty" I would need to add 
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I just love the shelving/countertop/cubby arrangement on that one wall . . . sigh . . .
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Me, too. I just love the flexibility! I mean, those baskets are a fortune in themselves, but it does seem an ideal balance of form and function
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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SallyT
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| Posted: May 01 2013 at 3:47pm | IP Logged
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I'm on board with your "pretty" for sure. And that space would lose its sterility fast as it filled up with real books, learning items, art supplies, and children.
Sally
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4Real Forums : Planning and Ordering our Days
Topic: Serene Homeschool Spaces
