Name: ICHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-06-05T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-06-07T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Bourbonnais, IL

Tagged: small house, storage

This topic has 20 replies, 15 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 9 months ago by Kayla.

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May 16, 2015 at 6:31 am
mrsmccardell
Participant
I need some tips on living in a smaller house. We are moving into a 1200+ square foot house next week. We have 4dc and we are excited yet I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was nervous. How do you organize any type of homeschool space? Do you have any multi-purpose furniture you love? Creative storage solutions? Thanks.
May 16, 2015 at 6:39 am
Monica
Participant
Our house is just a little bigger than that and we have 4 kids as well. We’ve lived here from the start, so I am used to it. Our living room is our school room. Our dining room works as desks. We have lots of bookcases (pretty much in every room). One thing I did this year that was inexpensive and very practical was to make these:
http://simply2ndresources.blogspot.com/2011/07/cute-crates-another-pinterest-inspired.html
(Not my blog, but that’s the idea). We’ll definitely keep these for next year. Each kid is able to keep all of their school books and papers in the box without cluttering up the living room.
May 16, 2015 at 7:18 am
Melanie32
Participant
Hi there! 🙂 Our house is 1,075 sq. feet. I only have 2 kids so I’m quite a bit less crowded than you are.
We have one tall bookcase in the dining area that holds the school books we are using currently. My son is almost 20 now so I’m really sharing how we did things when he was younger. He had his own bookcase and my daughter had book baskets. I had my husband build floor to ceiling book shelves on one wall of our bedroom. I also have a book basket in the living room that holds the books I am reading at the moment. We still have many books left over that won’t fit so I put the ones we won’t be using for the upcoming year in storage bins in the garage.
Our entire property (small, as it is) is our school room. We do school in bedrooms, at the kitchen table, on the porch and in the bedrooms. When the kids were little they enjoyed taking a blanket out in the yard and doing their school work there as well. We also did a lot of our reading at the local park.
One good thing about living in a small house is that I am very motivated to go through our things and send the excess to charity on a regular basis.
May 16, 2015 at 12:11 pm
suzukimom
Participant
I have 4 kids and our house is about 850 sq ft. Yes, it can be difficult. We have a ‘homeschool shelf’ which was a little linen closet that already had shelves in it. (our vacuum and carpet cleaner ‘live’ in our bedroom closet… and so do our towels.) The current books are there. There are bookshelves in my bedroom that house the school books that aren’t currently being used. We have a folding table (bigger than a TV-dinner table) that we do school for the child doing math with me. Kitchen table is often used for copywork – although we have just added a school desk to the girls’ room (got moved in there yesterday, so we haven’t used it yet) that will also be used. Kids tend to read their books on the couch, or lying on the floor in the hallway, or on the bed in the bedroom, or where-ever.
May 16, 2015 at 1:31 pm
Tristan
Participant
Mrsmccardell – our house is that size (1200 sq ft) for the 10 going on 11 of us. 🙂 It is doable! We don’t have a homeschool room but have shelving in place throughout the house to use with a lot of that shelving in the dining room, and a fair amount of boxed up books/curricula that we pull out for the years we need it (ex: all history except our current time period is put away, math levels nobody is in this year are put away, etc).
The key for us has been keeping clutter to a minimum. Ours is a 3 bedroom house. Kids share rooms and don’t have large amounts of toys/clothes. (5 kids in the master bedroom on two bunks and a toddler bed, 3 kids in one room with a bunk and toddler size bed, and our bedroom with a crib for the coming or current baby). Our bathrooms are pretty tiny. (full bath upstairs and toilet and sink downstairs)
The main floor feels large and spacious, which helps, because that is where we spend a lot of our awake time. We also don’t have coffee tables or foot stools in the middle of the floor anywhere (we need as much open floorspace as possible with Mason using a wheelchair!).
Part of keeping the clutter down is decluttering regularly. We’re due for another round now that my morning sickness is subsiding. When I’m feeling well we usually declutter at least one area every other Saturday.
May 16, 2015 at 2:07 pm
Rose
Participant
I think an even bigger problem to small house living is in the winter WHERE do you go? I live in a small house and my boys go stircrazy in the winter. We now have a daughter too so I know things ill be cramped next winter. I just feel so trapped and the boys can’t go outside…any thoughts on this I’d love to hear.
May 16, 2015 at 4:37 pm
Wings2fly
Participant
Bunk beds and shelving along the top of the wall that can be reached from the bunk bed, like the wire shelving that goes in closets. You can put baskets, bins, storage boxes, hats, etc. up there. And a storage box under the bed for each child’s toys. I added a second hanging clothing rod on the lower half of the kids’ closet and put a storage bin on the floor. All bookcases need to be tall, wide, and sturdy. I shop craigslist for solid oak, about $100 each. Storage ottomans that double as extra seating are in several rooms. Smaller ones about 12″-15″ are about $20 at Wal-Mart or Target. And I am always needing to declutter. I have a tall cabinet for teacher supplies and future curriculum. School is done all over the house, with a bookcase for current school books. Each child has a workbox that is kept here when not in use. Otherwise, they take the box to where they want to work.
https://wherelearningabounds.wordpress.com/2014/08/30/organizing-and-storing-current-school-books/
May 16, 2015 at 6:15 pm
erin.kate
Participant
We are 6 living in 1200sf as well. My kids are 11, 9, 7, and 6. We live in SE Virginia so our winters are cold and summers are hot. We just learn to find our own niches in the house and unless it’s colder than 25* my kids play outside in the winter, too. Here are a few pictures of our “school” space, which is entirely our living space … family room, dining room, beds for reading, you name it. I love that we learned to thrive in a small space and that school is home and home is school.
http://marmaladesorrow.weebly.com/blog/an-atmosphere
(On the tall bookshelves I now have our memory verse cards strung on cute baker’s twine with itty clothespins.)
May 17, 2015 at 6:56 am
Kayla
Participant
We are in 1206 sq ft with 3 kids, ages 6, 4, 18m. We do not have single purpose furniture. I have 4 legal size 5 drawer cabinets that I painted, they are on the wall in my “eat in kitchen” and my dining table is around the corner in the living room. We do not have dressers! It is such a huge space saver. The kids closets have 3 drawer rubber maids, each child has 1 for anything that doesn’t hang up (we hug all shirts and dresses. My husband and I have a bed from ikea that has 4 drawers under it, it gives us a queen size bed of storage. I find that dressers just take up more room than they store and give us a place to pile stuff. We have a small linen closet with all our towels, sleeping bags, sheets. And the closet in the living room that is 6’x2′ is my homeschool closet. We are in Florida so we don’t need a coat closet.
I did a lot of furniture moving over the last 7 years, the kids rooms switch probably 2x a year. I think we will end up putting all 3 kids in one room and putting my sewing machines in the other (they are giant industrial machines, there no folding them up and putting them in a closet)
i definitely and in the purge group. I am always getting rid of stuff. The kids only have dress up and Legos inside and outside the have old pots and pans and dirt. Eavih child has 1 wood crate for their personal things, if all the baby dolls and their stuff doesn’t fit in my 6 year olds crate she Has to get rid of something.
good luck, it is very freeing to have less and less to clean!
May 18, 2015 at 12:23 pm
4myboys
Participant
Our family of four lives in approximately 800 square foot home with a partially finished basement. We have tried to make more use of the basement; however, with tiny windows and a “basement” feel, it has not been an inviting workspace. As a result we do most of our schooling at the kitchen table, which also doubles as a home office, so there are laptops and school books to be moved around before every meal time.
I have designated our only linen closet as our storage area for our main books & supplies such as pens, pencils, erasers, markers, tape, etc are kept in the pockets of a shoe organizer hanging on the inside of the door (towels in the bathroom, sheets in bedroom closets, vacuum lives in a corner of the bedroom). Another large shelf is in the basement for additional storage (our large white board and a mid-size white board are still down there, as well as another table and chairs, but we don’t use them often). We have a 3’x2′ world map on the kitchen wall, and one kitchen cupboard & shelf dedicated to board games and craft stuff. There is one small bookshelf in the living room where we keep our Bibles and the boys binders and work books as well as library books.
The key to working in a small space is organization – I am still trying to figure out the best solution, but it’s coming.
May 18, 2015 at 5:54 pm
michelle mccamish
Participant
It is so refreshing to know you are not the only one making smaller spaces work! I have three boys, 8, 6, and 2 in 1278 sq feet. Which will make it easy for them all to share one room. We have a really small dining area, so we are working on utilizing the 3rd bedroom more with a school desk. I am still working on using our space better, but for their room we have a bunk bed and a loft bed, which creates a great space to store and designate a lego area under the bed. We also have bookshelves in every room. We use a a desk for the computer in the living room and use the three drawers for each of them to store their everyday items.
The closet in the 3rd bedroom is almost all extra curriculum and the “office.”
May 19, 2015 at 6:32 am
Kayla
Participant
I think that the key to living in a small house (by today’s standards) while homeschooling is to rethink the floor plan. Each room doesn’t need to be what it is supposed to be. Try to think outside the box. The best way I have found for arranging rooms is to draw the whole house on graph paper, and all our furniture, and sit and move things around until I find a lay out that works. I also recommend all furniture having double duty, and old dresser can be painted and used as a tv stand, giving you tons of storage for books or movies. My filing cabinets are where my “eat in kitchen” is supposed to be, our books, games, movies, some kitchen storage, extra school supplies, amd junk drawer fill it. It is so much storage.
I think that having a piece or two more of storage furniture, which allows for less clutter, can actually make the house more spacious.
May 20, 2015 at 9:22 am
Kayla
Participant
Well it’s official I’ve lost my mind. We just put in an offer on an 1100 sq ft house that has 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom, and no dishwasher! Our house now is a 1200 3/2 that is completely redone. Looks like I’m going to need to be more creative than I already am!
May 25, 2015 at 10:04 am
DawnD
Participant
Does anyone have 3 teenagers and live in that sort of square footage? We looked at a 960 sq. ft. house that I loved, but my boys don’t get along in the same room at all. I’m not sure I can handle all that togetherness in bad weather. Teens are different in small spaces than younger kids in my experience.
May 26, 2015 at 12:26 pm
4myboys
Participant
I agree that having teens share a room can be a challenge; however, I also think it can offer many great lessons in learning to have consideration for one another. Most of these kids will eventually share a room with a spouse, and it would be nice if they learned to keep their underwear off the floor before that happens.
Our 14 & 10 year old boys each have their own room, which my husband insists is best considering the oldest is a night owl and the younger is an early bird. Unfortunately they now complain whenever they have to share a space, like at their grandparents, and my oldest would rather sleep on the sofa than in the second twin bed in the same room as his brother.
I think if it’s possible to keep other belongings/entertainments out of the bedroom (maybe even the clothes if you have somewhere else to store them — maybe the laundry room?) so they aren’t as likely to hang out in there, may help. I’ve seen people put curtains across the bunk beds to afford extra privacy, too.