How would you organize this?

[snickelfritz]

I know this is hard to do without seeing, but I'm desperate.

-----We have a large room that is a toyroom.

-----We have a tiny bedroom(with a closet) that we were going to call our homeschool room, but is actually becoming the place that holds stuff we don't know where else to put it. There are a lot of homeschooling books, supplies, manipulatives that I don't want freely available. Also, outgrown clothes, our electronic piano, our grown-up books, my scrapbooking supplies, etc....

-----We have 2 shelves in the kitchen cupboard that hold play-dough, crayons, everyday homeschooling stuff and things they can freely pull out without me supervising.

dh really wants everything to have a place and I honestly have a hard time finding things. Plus, it's dangerous to walk into the small bedroom. Someone is likely to trip and break a bone.

I could:
1. call the small room the homeschool room and that is where everything goes back each night. Playdough and crayons and all. It is hard to differentiate between toys and school supplies sometimes.

2. Make the toyroom multi-purpose and move homeschool stuff in there. Maybe put paints and related "adult supervision required" up high? Leave the small bedroom for our books, piano, scrapbooking, etc. Does the toyroom/schoolroom blur the line between play/school or keep the schooltime part of life? Any advice here?

3. Call in a professional organizer. :o I'm tempted. But, we'll have to wait for the next bonus and I need to get something started now.

This is not a new problem, so the solutions I've come up with are not working.

[WTMindy]

toy room be my school room too. It is a nice big room and comfortable to be in.

[Carol in Cal.]

It is difficult to have too many bookshelves. But try to get to that point.

My inclination would be to line the smaller room with Billy shelves from Ikea. They are great--very sturdy and basic and quite adjustable.

You can put doors on part of them, and buy inexpensive baskets to make 'drawers' for small loose items.

I would put all of your curriculum materials that you use every day on one shelf. Maybe you will need one shelf per child. Then I would put all of the other materials, like manipulatives or craft items or supplemental subject area reading that you only use occasionally on other high shelves. If you go to the library a lot, have a shelf that is just for library books. (Wouldn't it be nice to have a place to put them?)

Then in the other room, I would buy one of those slightly deeper than Billy bookshelves that can be laid on the long or short side. Lay it on the long side. That gives you two low shelves and a top shelf. Have containers for playdough, and all of the other things that are 'free play' items. Games can be neatly stacked on top of the top shelf, and you can put a globe up there, too. I have this kind of setup, and it has been excellent. I also bought a US map and a world map at Costco and had them mounted on foam core (very cheap). I lean them against the wall on the top low shelf, one behind the other. The foam core gives them just enough support to stand up like that, but they are still very light.