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SeaStar
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| Posted: Oct 28 2011 at 2:43pm | IP Logged
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My ds did a massive room clean out about a month ago, and now he has space for a little desk, which he is looking forward to having.
His vision is to have a desk with a computer and a fish bowl. My vision is
1) never have a bowl of water near your computer and 2) no TV or computer in bedrooms.... common areas only.
So I am looking for some creative ideas. I haven't spotted anything good at the few stores I have been in the past month. No Ikea locally. Yard sales/thrift stores are an option, only that might take months, and he wants a nice desk sooner than that. I don't really have anything I could easily repurpose for him as a desk (that I think he'd really like).
So...anyone buy or make a desk lately?
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
SQUILT Music Appreciation
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: Oct 28 2011 at 3:40pm | IP Logged
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You might try ebay for something local. Child's roll top desks seem to go quite reasonably. ebay desk
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Lindsay
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: Oct 28 2011 at 4:48pm | IP Logged
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My experience with desks in kids rooms has been entirely negative. They end up being a place to pile stuff and cram stuff and rapidly end up unusable. But that's just my experience. Your mileage may vary.
I'd like to suggest instead using that space for a cozy chair for reading with a little side table where he could put a fish bowl next to it and perhaps a basket for favorite books.
In fact, this is just exactly what I plan to do with a space that just opened up in my dd's room.
Just a thought.
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Theresa
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SeaStar
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| Posted: Oct 28 2011 at 5:25pm | IP Logged
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lapazfarm wrote:
My experience with desks in kids rooms has been entirely negative. They end up being a place to pile stuff and cram stuff and rapidly end up unusable. But that's just my experience. Your mileage may vary.
I'd like to suggest instead using that space for a cozy chair for reading with a little side table where he could put a fish bowl next to it and perhaps a basket for favorite books.
In fact, this is just exactly what I plan to do with a space that just opened up in my dd's room.
Just a thought. |
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That is an interesting thought. My ds would indeed pile stuff up on a desk. I think the big appeal for a desk for him is getting an office chair with wheels to go with it.  . Many of his friends have computers in their rooms and ds games (am I even saying that right?), and I suppose he has ideas of having all the same. Maybe a small table, a chair and the fish wold work just as well.
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
SQUILT Music Appreciation
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ShannonJ
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| Posted: Oct 28 2011 at 8:45pm | IP Logged
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We purchased our current schoolroom desk on Craigslist. I'm not sure if this is an option for you? It was actually a kitchen table, but smallish sized. Hubby cut the legs on the table and chairs down so that it is the perfect height for us. Easy for the little ones to sit at, and not so short that I am scrunched into a ball!  What I really liked is that I could have the larger working area I desired combined with the shorter height. Oh, and it was maybe $30.
My daughter has her hand-me-down vanity desk that she uses for her personal art supplies. I hung a simple shelf above to hold some pretty buckets to place pencils and such. She has an extra light and enjoys sitting there in the evening after dinner to draw.
My son has a small children's table that was in our schoolroom at one time. It has two chairs and his wooden puzzles are just underneath. He doesn't use it often and really prefers sitting in the schoolroom to do any desk-type activities. Close by he has a couple of kid sized lounging chairs. Between the chairs sits a step stool and on top is his basket of National Geographic Little Kids magazines. He does enjoy sitting here in the morning as he usually wakes up early.
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Michaela
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lapazfarm wrote:
| My experience with desks in kids rooms has been entirely negative. They end up being a place to pile stuff and cram stuff and rapidly end up unusable. But that's just my experience. Your mileage may vary. |
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This is EXACTLY what has happened here.
I bought a nice desk for my 11yo artistic dd. I thought she'd like to use it for art, writing penpals, maybe even add an extra table little area for her sewing machine. She used it maybe a week, then went back to the dining room table or sitting on her bed.
At the same time, I bought each of my children desks for their bedroom. The green eyed monster of envy struck and everyone wanted a desk. None of them cost me more than $15 on a local yard sale website I frequent.
All but my 11yo daughter's desk are cover with stuff. Her desk looks great (nicely decorated) but it's never ever used. 
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AmandaV
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| Posted: Nov 01 2011 at 10:11pm | IP Logged
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How many of you use desks? We've been doing the school at a table thing so far, but maybe it would help my 7 year old with focus?
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Amanda
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Erin
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Melinda
My experience with desks for younger children is fairly similar to Theresa's. Why don't you consider a desk on wheels, then you can easily move it to other positions in the house if not working in the bedroom.
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sewcrazy
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We bought desks for all the kids 
Utterly useless in our house. Took all the desks out of the kids' rooms as they ended up being the base of mountains of stuff. We tried the desks in the school room...no good! I gave them away (except for one for my daughter for her beading supplies to live) and we went back to a table
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LeeAnn
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SeaStar
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| Posted: Nov 03 2011 at 11:44am | IP Logged
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We currently do schoolwork at a table, so this desk would just be for him to have in his room. It would not be for school. I'm sort of waiting to see if the idea dies out, but he keeps asking about it.
We'll see... I do NOT want to put something in there that will just be another spot to accumulate stuff. I am the only one allowed to have desks that do that 
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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Mimip
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We got school desks for our kids when a Catholic School closed here. I thought they would really work but they did not, at least not the way I thought they would work.
I just reconfigured our room a few months ago and put each desk facing a wall or window. They only go there when they have copywork or handwriting or something else for a few minutes. We have timers on their desks and it helps to know they have a limited amount of time to focus and then rejoin us all at the large table.
OK Back to Melinda's original question.
No desks in rooms here either. We do have a bench seat that has a cushion and under seat storage for the girls to read on though. I think we would have massive collections going in desks.
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Mimi
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TxTrish
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We have desks for all the school age kiddies. The live (usually) in the schoolroom. We do school at the table usually, all the kids will sometimes want to work at their desk. Sometimes I make youngest do his school work at his desk because our table (seats 8 mind you) just isn't big enough for them not to irritate one another.
We drag them around, doesn't bother us.
I suppose at our house a desk in the bedroom as a piece of furniture is usually just a place to stack stuff - but, so is everything else... at least to some degree. And I have to go through and help get it all back under control periodically anyway - so, we do have desks in rooms sometimes.
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aussieannie
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I saw some creative, small desks in Ikea the other day. I suppose if you can have something that once used (for schoolwork) it can be pushed out of sight, so hopefully eliminating the mess developing on top of an always visual and tantalizing desktop.
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4Real Forums : Planning and Ordering our Days
Topic: Ideas for a kids desk
