School Room Week

It's week 2 of the NOT Back to School Blog Hop, and this week I get to share with y'all my school room. I'm so excited about it!

We don't have a "school room" really, but rather much of our school takes place in our family room. This room is the largest in our house, and serves as our family room, dining room, play room, library, school room, and probably a dozen other functions as well. It is open to both our living room and kitchen, and you have to go through this room to get to our backyard. In addition to all these other things going on in there, it is the room we entertain in when we entertain. Obviously, it's a busy place.

Here's what is used to look like. (As usual, click on any image to see it full sized.)

Here's what it looks like now, from the same angle.

 Sooooo, much nicer. SO MUCH! I took this on Saturday afternoon, with Lego's all over the place and other little messes, but it still looks so much nicer than it used to even when it was as clean as it could possibly get.

I have dreamed of built in cabinets and shelves since long before we even bought this house. In fact, when we looked at this house before we bought it we discussed that 17 foot long wall would be perfect for my built-ins.

My husband and I planned what we wanted, and we took that plan to Lowe's and ordered kitchen cabinets. It took five weeks for the cabinets to come in, but in the mean time hubby painted the wall (he chose the color too, but I love it). Then he installed the cabinets, making the wooden "counter top" and shelves himself. It took me longer to go through everything and fill up the cabinets than it took him to install them!

The result? Beauty and organization. ALL of my homeschool stuff, plus craft supplies, plus my vacuum, plus all of our board games and puzzles, plus all the books we own, plus more fits in those cabinets with room to spare. I am in love. I love it so much that here are some more photos from different angles just because.

All four Sonlight Cores we're doing this year are out on the shelves, but neat and attractive, along with some nicknacks and books from my childhood. Those wires are hook ups for our surround sound, whenever we get a new one, since the the very old one went boom the moment we turned it on last week. Notice the comfy chair in the corner there. By the way, that's a school book she's reading, yes on a Saturday afternoon while the boys play with Legos. Sonlight. It's that good.

This is what it looks like when we're doing school in there. Here we are doing art, recreating Van Gogh's Sunflowers using oil pastels. It's one of the lessons in Confessions of a Homeschooler's World's Greatest Artist curriculum (which is amazingly free!).