Our Homeschool Shelf Corner (DIY & Organizing)

Let me begin by saying, I am SUPER excited for school to be over this spring and for school to begin this fall. Yep, already. I have always wanted to homeschool my kids. I loved how my parents did it with us. They began us at home, they focused on building a sure footing, a solid foundation of faith, truth and love at home and when they felt called, they sent us into public school.
That's what I have always wanted for our children. A firm grounding on the faith of Jesus Christ. We did not homeschool Bennett through kindergarten this year for a few reasons. First, we had an offer for paid tuition to the school that my husband grew up in - how could we resist?! Second, the school is a Christian school, their beliefs match ours - perfection! Third, the kindergarten teacher this year was a classmate of Andrew's - solid. And fourth, we were moving just as school would be starting, there was no easy way for me to launch into homeschooling one, having two rambunctious little ones on the side and settling into a new home. It just all added up, made sense and after praying about it, we were totally at peace with the decision.

So with all of the ideal notions mentioned, why are we homeschooling this fall now? Good question. I'll start with the trivial things and work to the ones with more substance.

First, it's a lot of driving. I will be driving 20 minutes each way, 2 times a day, 5 days a week - that's a lot of packing kids up too.

Second, it's super restricting, it's hard to try to maintain a schedule like that and keep up with blogging, women's ministry, youth group soon as well as any type of social life.

Third, Andrew doesn't get Saturdays off. Ever. Car sales are whole Saturdays. So our kids would only have one day a week with their daddy. He consistently gets Thursdays off and if we are homeschooling they will still get that day with dad.

Fourth, I will be able to start Pre-K with Parker and 1st with Bennett - wahoo to early learning!

And fifth, I feel like Bennett would learn best in a one-on-one environment. It took him longer to catch on this year than either myself or Andrew anticipated - we both know he could be much further than he is. This is NO fault of the school, it's just what happens when the teacher is teaching double grades and has more than 1 kid in class, I mean cmon! There's only so much time one person can give to each kid.

Anywho. On to my shelves that I am SUPER excited to share!!!


First off, I did a lot of research and Pinteresting in order to find the right way to organize store and hide all of the school things that I anticipate having. I am all new here so I'm still learning a lot. I didn't want to clutter the room with more furniture nor did we have the funds to purchase something so we got crafty.

I have a lot of shelves pinned so Andrew and I found a style that we could both agree on. We both love the look of wood and we both really liked the Ikea Ekby Valter brackets. We just didn't have $3 a piece to spend on eight of them. Seriously.

So for $0.80 a piece, Andrew grabbed a couple of one-by's from Menards and created himself a pattern.

I know, what a guy, right?!


I mapped out a plan for styling and organizing the shelves in the meantime and began going through all of the resources that I already had on hand. I did a lot more pinning on how to style shelves and how to organize shelves. It's amazing how much research can go into one project!



It's totally worth it in the end though. And everybody had a hand in helping: Parker helped me put things on the shelf once they were all up.


And then he tested the height and strength of the shelves:

He wasn't thrilled with the height (although mom was happy) but they held him up so he was pleased! ;) And here they are, all styled and lookin purdy!


I wanted the utensils to be accessible but not TOO accessible - the older boys can get things with a stool - baby cannot! I also wanted some life on the shelves and I found that great plant at Walmart for $2.50!!! Playdough is easily accessible for the kids to play at their leisure and it's easy to clean up - they just have to toss it into the container.

I varied heights with containers and book piles and styled the top with things we don't necessarily need often but are school related!

Under the shelves I have two crates that I plan on putting wheels on...that'll be another project to share. Along with two plastic drawers to hide papers and artwork in that doesn't need to be on the wall. The crates hold extra school books, practice books and color books as well as learning games and puzzles.


What do you think? I love the way that it turned out, I'm hoping it will be enough space and easy enough to keep everything neat and orderly during our busy school days.

Do you have any tips, suggestions or organization ideas for a homeschool corner?

4 comments

  1. Way to go mama! You'll do a great job homeschooling the boys!

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  2. Thanks Rachel! In all honesty, I'm super nervous - I just can't keep a schedule for my life and I'm really going to have to commit to one in order to teach them...oiy. Oh well. :)

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  3. Those are awesome shelves! Travis is planning some cool box shelves for his records one day when we get a house of our own!

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  4. Thanks! That is such a fun idea! :)

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