4Real Forums: room arrangement?

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Planning and Ordering our Days
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Topic: room arrangement?

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Becky Parker
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Posted: May 21 2010 at 9:22am \| IP Logged

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this. Moderators please feel free to move it if it's not.

It's become apparent that we are going to have to move our school room upstairs for next year. I am thinking that my diningroom and sunroom, right next to each other, might be a good place for this. I have a few pictures of these rooms in an old blog post The top two pictures are the sunroom. The first picture is what you see if you look to the left after entering, the second picture is if you look straight ahead and to the right just a shade. The next two are the dining room. The entry from the dining room to the sunroom is very wide. There is no door there. There is also a picture from our classroom with shows a portion of our wall of shelves. I'm used to having lots of space to store lots of stuff so this is going to be an adjustment.

Any tips on how to arrange things?
Just a note, in the picture of the sunroom that shows no furniture there is a computer desk in the front right corner.
TIA! My interior decorating skills are severly lacking!

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Becky
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Mackfam
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Posted: May 21 2010 at 11:19am \| IP Logged

Hey - that sunroom is a FANTASTIC space! Look at the light...and those trees/greenery and the big windows! So cheery!

I do see the challenge...you don't have a lot of wall space to work with do you? I can empathize. I'm in a dining room of an open floor plan house. I make use of every.square.inch of wallspace with shelves I can mount to the walls. I need my floorspace free because I always have a baby/toddler about and also because I need the floor for other things and having shelves on the floors takes up real estate quickly in my room.

Can you leave your shelves downstairs and just bring up what you're working with and a few reference materials? Or make use of a long hallway upstairs and line it with the bookshelves I saw in your downstairs school space? They would be more accessible like this.

In terms of arrangement - don't be afraid to float furniture off the walls. All of our tables and desks are floating in the room. This makes them central. I have had them against walls before and this does work, but floating furniture is a nice option.

Overall, the space you have to work with looks so bright and inviting! I imagine you could do a lot to work with it. Just try not to block the great light as you arrange the furniture and supplies you have. Work with the walls you have. Think outside the box - closet organizer systems work GREAT in learning spaces!! Stand in various parts of rooms that connect and look towards those windows. You don't want to block that amazing light!

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Becky Parker
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Posted: May 22 2010 at 7:13am \| IP Logged

Yes Jen, this room was an addition to the house and it's everyone's favorite. Out the window you see the woods and the river - great for wildlife viewing!

I think I will keep most of the stuff downstairs, as you say, and move it up as we need it. I'm thinking one bookshelf might be enough to have up here. I have a little space in the dining room for that. I love the wall mounted idea and I'm going to discuss that with DH today.

I went to your blog and looked at the pictures of your awesome school room. I see how having the tables in the middle of the room works. I think this could work in the sunroom for us. I agree I don't want to block the light/view.

I use workboxes, which really help corral the kid's books in the school room. I'm thinking a system like that would help up here, but I either need something I can put away (hide) or something that will look nice sitting out. Right now, I use a set of plastic drawers from JoAnn's that work great, but I'm not sure they look so great sitting out in the room... I'm probably not explaining this very well. The China Hutch in the dining room does a great job at hiding stuff in the cabinets below. I might try to use that space a little better.

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Servant2theKing
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Posted: May 22 2010 at 11:23am \| IP Logged

Becky. the spaces you have to work with are really wonderful and inviting! Jen is much more skilled in this area, so please disregard my thoughts if they don't fit your needs or if they conflict with what Jen has already suggested. As she mentioned, you could easily float your dining table in your sunroom....then you would have lots of space in your dining room for the bookshelves you already own, along with your awesome hutch. When I look at your hutch I envision baskets and books where your lovely plates currently reside. If you would miss having your plates on display, you could use plate hangers to hang them along sections of the walls. We have several plates hanging over windows and around pictures....they make lovely accents. Your rocking chairs could easily float in the dining room or sunroom, wherever your family most enjoys parking themselves for a cozy reading or prayertime! Think of redesigning your learning space as a grand adventure and enjoy yourselves!
edited to add:
Here is an address for a BLOG with lovely, simple ideas for including learning materials in living space:
http://evlogia.typepad.com/evlogia/2010/03/beauty_in_simplic ity.html

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SeaStar
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Posted: May 22 2010 at 6:13pm \| IP Logged

SarahM has a nice blog post about using space and incorporating learning here: happy learning spaces

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Becky Parker
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Posted: May 24 2010 at 9:21am \| IP Logged

Thank you for the links Servant and Melinda. They are very helpful. I am such a visual person, the pictures really help with some ideas.

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Becky
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Academy Of The Good Shepherd

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