Schoolroom Organization

I enjoy learning how people organize their spaces, and this is particularly true for schoolrooms. So here's how I did ours.  It is very simple and it works for me!

Our schoolroom area is a finished basement.  The basement looked like this for many years--lots of exposed studs and insulation. (The single window is now a double window, pictured later in the post.)

Now we have walls!  

In the living area we have a little space for music--the piano, toy instruments, and a guitar reside here. Our other two guitars are in another part of this room. A basket to the left of the piano (you can't see it well in this photo) stores piano lesson books.  The cross-stitch above the piano is one my grandmother did years ago.  The large abalone shell underneath it was my mother's.  The piano is a behemoth antique with real ivory keys; I learned on it when I was a child. 

The photos on the wall near the guitar are black and whites of my father--because he's a music lover and a guitar player. 

Directly across from the music area is the pantry.  I use a shoe storage organizer to corral all the many, many different office supplies we own--from binder clips to staples, from push pins to Sharpees, from scissors to post-it notes, from tape to glue...it's all here.  Each section is labeled in yellow so that we know where things go. 

My inside-the-pantry shot was very blurry, so I'm omitting it.  The top two shelves of the pantry contain acrylic paints, science kit materials, ribbon and gift cards, melty beads, craft supplies bin, and a bin with colored pencils, pastels, and stamps. Having the craft items in one place is so, so helpful.

To the right of the pantry is the stairwell that leads upstairs. Portrait is by a sweet and dear family friend.

And to the right of the stairwell is my mother's childhood rolltop desk.  A silver compote, Native American pottery my husband brought to me from Colorado, and a geode we purchased in Oregon sit on top.  The watercolor is by another friend. 

To the left of the piano we have a bookcase.  This was made by my husband's grandfather!  The bins on the top of the bookcase contain all the books we use for the current schoolyear.  This makes it very easy for me to just grab what we need each day and go. On the second shelf we have two baskets that hold DVD cases.  The purple bin holds the small selection of VHS tapes that we still own, and to the right of that are a few music collection cases. The second shelf contains some 'boxed set' movies, a big black CD case, my special round picnic basket, a small wooden container with the few cassette tapes I have left, and a few books. On the bottom we have bins holding scratch and blank paper--easily accessible for my young artist. (The little high chair you can sort of see to the right was made by my grandfather for my mom and her brothers. It is beautiful!)

Our schoolroom is an aqua color. I love the built-in cabinetry.  I still can't believe we were able to do this--I'm very grateful.

The schoolroom walls are aqua, as this blurry and dark photo shows.  We have a very large dry erase board mounted on one wall (thanks to my brother-in-law, who owns a dry erase board manufacturing company).  My husband found old school pull-down maps of our state and the world on ebay and installed them above the board.  My desk, not pictured, is below the dry erase board--it is exactly as wide as the board.  Our history picture narrations are currently at the top of the board, but I hope to put up a corkboard in the adjoining laundry area for those soon. 

To the left of my desk is the filing cabinet.  Why did I not close those drawers?  Anyhow--the top of the cabinet contains photos, some of my favorite little trinket-type items (mostly from Finland), and pewter cups of pencils and pens......and a few things that remind me of my late, great mother, who was a public schoolteacher. 

A pink magnetic basket on the side of the file cabinet holds my dry erase markers.  The rest of the side of the cabinet is for a penmanship chart, three inspirational notes, a sticker chart for my eldest, my son's soccer photo from last year and a beautiful photo my sister brought me from Prague. 

(Also, the plates on the wall were painted by my mother and are intentionally crooked! One was cracked, and I feared putting too much tension on the crack. So I just hung them askew! Why not!)

I like binders.  Here's my collection. On the top shelf there's a financial course for children packet, the flash cards box, a Delta Science in a Nutshell kit and my beloved label maker in the purple bin.  The next shelf holds my binders: everything from my husband's CNC router building instructions to my home management binder to the binders I use for school. To the right are some old primers. 

The cabinets below the bookcases are maybe my favorite thing ever.  

There's the toy cabinet.....

The photo album/scrapbook cabinet.....

The games cabinet.....

The cabinet containing bins with index cards, CDs, labels, photos, scrapbook paper, and stationery......

The cabinet with the paperstuffs: binder of sheet protectors, pile of legal pads, pile of composition notebooks, pile of spiral notebooks.  Below this we have construction paper...and our old yearbooks!

The last cabinet on the wall contains the printer, power strip, printer paper and various related accessories (in the big clear bin). 

I keep a big basket of board books on the floor. I can't stand to part with any of these treasures. 

In front of the double window we have our former dining table--a farm-style table I bought for a song at a consignment store several years ago.  The basket in the middle contains softback picture books. We have a globe, a bunch of books piled up on the left for flower-pressing purposes, and a random bunny as well....

A side view of the table--littered with papers, The Story of the World on CD, and pencils.  Someone is also checking out his nature journal......

 The desk looks out to the patio, crabapple tree and under-construction playground.....as well as great-grandma's house on the hill.

 To the left of the window is our nature shelf.  The reticulated giraffe print is one that we carried around for years--a gift from my father-in-law to my husband--and that I loathed.  I finally decided to try it out on the wall and lo and behold--it fits right into the schoolroom.  Go figure!

In this photo the nature table contains items of winter: found rocks, feathers and yes, a squirrel's tail.  Just don't even ask about that--Squirrel Nutkin is still feeling violated, I'm sure. A dormant orchid waits patiently to rebloom.

That's how we organize our schoolroom.  I keep things as simple and uncomplicated as possible. I like to use what I already have and I feel very content with my little system.  We are so grateful for what we have and for the little tools (like that over-the-door organizer!) that help keep things organized!