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how big is your house? - Page 3

post #41 of 57
6/5/08 at 7:43pm
heh-yah, a small space just makes sure you get OUT of the house-- hello, world at large where there is so much to learn!!!

And we have those same closets under the sloped roof (we have a tudor so even our top floor is considered a 1/2 floor ) Linen closet? ha! that would be the underbed storage box!!!
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post #42 of 57
6/5/08 at 9:53pm
We live in a 1500 sq ft house, 3 br. We keep our school stuff on one wall of the dining room, more books in the living room & bedroom. Here is a photo of our "wall" It's messy, took it before my nesting kicked in and I straightened up the whole area (I already need to do this again - ha) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/4950317...01/2253538851/

We really do need another cabinet or bookshelf of some sort, but we haven't found anything yet.

OH I don't limit work to the table, but it is nice when I need to be sitting with everyone at the same time because we have a large table. The older boys have desks in their room and sometimes one of them will go in there or go to the living room if they need some quiet.
post #43 of 57
6/5/08 at 11:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by eco_mama View Post
ok so for a little while now i've been thinking that we'll need to find a bigger place before we start hsing in the fall so we can have a 'school room' but after reading through this thread i don't feel like i need to! in fact, i kind of feel stupid for ever thinking so in the first place! we're in about 1500sq 3bdrm. two of the rooms are bedrooms and one is used as an 'office/computer' room. our living/dining rooms are open to eachother and pretty decent size so i've been thinking of ways to make that our main area. we could definitely get rid of some things in the computer room that are taking up space and seriously get creative and make it work great!

and on top of this, we have a full finished basement that is just used for storage right now. which has a fire place that we never use! i've been being totally picky about the fact that there are only 2 little (and i do mean little) windows down there and i don't want our school room w/o nice windows, but come on -- it's not like we'd have to stay down there all day, right?! and, the floor is hard, concrete -- but i can through down some rugs no problem.

i love talking so sense into myself! lol and i have this thread to thank!
We changed the computer/office room into the "schoolroom" and brought our computers to the finished basement and made that a family room. I like the arrangement a lot more than before.

I think there are some pictures on my blog of the schoolroom - the kids are painting with my mom in the last post, i think.
post #44 of 57
6/5/08 at 11:55pm
We have a big house- 1600+ sq ft. but do most stuff (writing or clay building or art) on the kitchen table because it's the most convenient place.
post #45 of 57
6/6/08 at 12:03am
We have a fairly small (probably about 1000sq feet?) 3br/1bath house. We do some of our schooly activites at the computers, some at the dining room table.. and if it's nice we adjourn to the veranda out back for school : We do have things Lucas has made on the walls (think the local map he drew, the counting by 2s/10s chart , and our monthly calendar with seasonal pictures the kids colour) in the hallway. We also have the odd project (metre wide dino mural we worked on as a project comes to mind lol) on the dining room wall. The majority of our supplies are in the linen cupboard in the hallway, which I have mostly taken over as we've decluttered all the extra linen we never used anyway!
post #46 of 57
6/6/08 at 1:39am
We have a house w/ pretty good space now...

but at one point, for a year I HS'd the girls while we lived in a 16ftX18ft dry cabin (dry means no running water, we had an outhouse and hauled 5 gal buckets).

We didn't even have a kitchen table.

I miss those days sometimes. It sure was cozy.

love, penelope
post #47 of 57
6/6/08 at 4:01am
Hmm, for a year...
you weren't a part of Pioneer House?
post #48 of 57
6/6/08 at 10:53am
The minute we moved to our new place, which is much smaller and more chopped up than our old home, I designed a wall of book shevles around the fireplace and begged a contractor for a deal. We painted them ourselves. I don't know what we would have one otherwise. (We'd have survivied, I'm sure. Nothing too dramtic. lol) There are shevles for books and cabinets for games, puzzles and more. We do a lot of moving things around. Sometimes it's a pita, but we have a huge outdoor space and that makes up for it, at least when it's not raining or 0 degrees out. Our third bedroom is the size of a closet, with no closet, and the kids all share sleeping space. They just built them regular for regular folks 120 years ago. (The age of our home). Basically you learn to live in your space. It took me months to get used to the new patterns of living in my space. The tradeoff has been wonrderful for us. Here is a pic of the shelves:

http://bp3.blogger.com/__wXoReesqWE/...g+2008+181.jpg
post #49 of 57
6/6/08 at 11:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by UUMom View Post

um
post #50 of 57
6/6/08 at 11:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by eco_mama View Post
um
It really made *all* the difference for us. I felt like I could relax, with everything we needed finally having a home. We had him do a couple of shelves in the kitchen as well. We felt we couldn't afford it at first, but then we realized we had to do it. You can sort of see the kitchen ones here:
http://bp2.blogger.com/__wXoReesqWE/...h/DSCN9229.JPG At the left bottom, and then above dh's head . This is our kitchen/dininn area, and you can see we cram a lot of living in there.
post #51 of 57
6/6/08 at 10:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by heket View Post
Hmm, for a year...
you weren't a part of Pioneer House?
No. We live in Alaska, and that was just our living arrangement then. We all loved that cabin.

love, p
post #52 of 57
6/6/08 at 11:08pm
Well...I keep telling people who ask that we are bedschooling We're expats in India and our house is "cozy"...small boxy rooms, poor flow, bad lighting, no yard. We do have 3 small bedrooms and the 2 kids share a room but the "extra" room has a large bed in it, that takes up most of the space. The kids stuff completely surrounds it! (we are in a furnished rental house...and I'm trying to get them to take the bed and some other furniture out of the house asap.) I bought three hand painted Rajastani cabinets that are now full of books and hs'ing supplies...and some baskets and the rest is in plastic bins. It gets soooo dusty here!

I'm also lobbying for a clothes dryer. We have a nice stone terrace upstairs with a table and chairs but we rarely use it because it always has all our laundry drying on it (that's an issue with monsoon starting now as well because it pours buckets in the afternoons and then the clothes take up so much space trying to dry indoors!)

Chandra
expat mama to G (6) and O (4)
India
post #53 of 57
6/7/08 at 4:45pm
That is so gorgeous!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by UUMom View Post
The minute we moved to our new place, which is much smaller and more chopped up than our old home, I designed a wall of book shevles around the fireplace and begged a contractor for a deal. We painted them ourselves. I don't know what we would have one otherwise. (We'd have survivied, I'm sure. Nothing too dramtic. lol) There are shevles for books and cabinets for games, puzzles and more. We do a lot of moving things around. Sometimes it's a pita, but we have a huge outdoor space and that makes up for it, at least when it's not raining or 0 degrees out. Our third bedroom is the size of a closet, with no closet, and the kids all share sleeping space. They just built them regular for regular folks 120 years ago. (The age of our home). Basically you learn to live in your space. It took me months to get used to the new patterns of living in my space. The tradeoff has been wonrderful for us. Here is a pic of the shelves:

http://bp3.blogger.com/__wXoReesqWE/...g+2008+181.jpg
post #54 of 57
6/7/08 at 6:23pm
We have 2650 square feet with 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, and office, and a formal dining. Right now the formal dining is our school room since all of the bedrooms are filled and Dh works from home. I hate that our room is open to the front door and has few walls. We do have 4 Ikea Billy bookcases on one wall but that is not enough to house my 2,000+ kids/school books.

I dream of a house with a game room just for school - tucked away from DH's office. I think the hardest thing is that we are in our home 24/7. I get sick of these walls and sometimes feel like the are a prison. We used to get out more but now my mom is living with us and we are caring for her.

I guess no house is ever big enough for homeschooling.
post #55 of 57
6/7/08 at 9:28pm
2000+ Books I thought I had a lot! That is awesome.
post #56 of 57
6/8/08 at 9:37am
We have 1300-1500 sf (the upstairs is dormered and a weird shape, so I'm not exactly sure.) That's with 4 bedrooms and including the basement.

We have bookcases in just about every room. Some bookcases don't have books in them but have baskets for things like art supplies. The size of our house is not the issue--actually, we could do with less space--but the flow of the house it not the greatest for the way we live.

We don't use a classroom, but found it helpful to have a table besides our dining room table so that projects or games in progress needn't get in the way of meals.

We have maps on the living room walls, a chalkboard by the front door (to detail who needs to be where, when, on any given day.) My older two used to hang their drawings and things on the fridge, but ds2 wanted a bulletin board so that's hanging in the living room as well and he puts his artwork there.

Games are (theoretically) on shelves and we have those Rubbermaid-type bins for stuff like Legos, Brio trains, playmobil, etc.
post #57 of 57
6/8/08 at 10:37am
Howe about getting a closed in china cabinet (without glass) and using it for storing your curriculum and supplies. I use a liquor cabinet lol.. I havent read the responses yet so sorry if thats already been suggested
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