Dining Library

Oh my, this has been such an eventful day. This weekend we celebrated Sarah Beth's 3rd Birthday!!! So hard to believe she's been home almost 2 years now.

In the past two weeks her speech has totally taken off. I knew that it would, but I admit to feeling somewhat anxious about it when we were around others who's children were much younger and talking very well. She still has a good bit of trouble pronouncing some letters correctly, or at all, but I know that with lots of practice that will work itself out in time as well.

Other than my precious little one turning 3, Todd has been so busy this weekend, making one of my 10 year long dreams a reality! We've lived in our home now 10 years. Since we built it, I've wanted to have a sort of "library/dining" space. This concept is very often found in French Country design, which is my favorite style. Most importantly, we are a family of readers and homeschoolers, and we need every inch of bookshelf space we can get!

So, recently we spent a day in Atlanta and went to Ikea. I'd already been once to see the different colors and styles and make a decision about what I thought would look best with the furniture that I have. We then went back several weekends ago and bought the shelving that we needed. It fit perfectly between the window casing and the wall! It was the exact width we needed! Todd got them all put together, and finally today we got them upstairs and in place.

It wasn't long before I was loading those shelves down with all of our "floating" school supplies. Those are all of the books, notebook paper, pens and pencils, highlighters, white-out tape, and other school related items that float around all over my dining room table - the only space we have to eat besides a breakfast bar. All of the book bins I'd had sitting in the floor, and tripping over for months, were unloaded in a flash and put up onto the shelves for easy access during school.

At the beginning of the school year, I learned about Sue Patrick's "Workbox" system. I loved the idea, I am an organizing freak. So, I started using the system at the beginning of the school year and I LOVE IT!!! You can find her book at http://www.workboxsystem.com/. There are also several Yahoo boards for workbox users that have lots of people with loads of good ideas on implementing the system in your schooling.

We are using My Father's World's "Exploring Countries and Cultures" curriculum this year for a number of our subjects including Bible and Social Studies topics - Geography, and more. You'll notice on the far wall a large World map. The map we recieved with our curriculum was fine, just your average world map, but not really something I wanted to put up on my dining room wall. So, I went to Books-A-Million and purchased an "old World" style map and had it framed at Hobby Lobby. While it was definately a more expensive option, I am happy with the results. We now have instant access to a World map to locate the areas as we study through them.

So, without further ado, I will post some pictures here and you can see my new "Dining/Library" space that includes our workbox system (they are the numbered white drawers on the shelves). For those of you who've seen the turn around bookcase I purchased before, I still have it and plan to use it somewhere else later on, but it would no longer work once we bought the larger dining room table and chairs.

I am in Heaven! Well, as close as I can get while still being on Earth!

Abiding In His Amazing Grace,

Lori

This is an overall shot of the dining space. It is quite small, about 11'x11'.

This is a shot looking into my dining room from my kitchen area.

This is a shot of Anna's "workbox" space. For each drawer stack, I used the extra space on that shelf to put other books often assigned for the subjects in those current work boxes.

The shelf on the left, contains some miscellaneous book sets and reference items, and also houses my pre-school things for Sarah Beth.
This picture also shows the framed map a little more closely, and Sarah's highchair. :o)