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

Tagged: Homeschooling in a small home

This topic has 11 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 6 months ago by LindseyD.

Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)

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October 23, 2014 at 6:28 pm
poodlemama
Participant
Hi everyone. Our family is thinking of doing a massive downsize. We have decided we want to take the kids on an extended trip to Europe before our oldest graduates from high school– and we can’t do that with a big mortgage payment each month. So we are planing to sell the big house (1900 square feet plus an unfinished basement) and move into a townhouse that is about 1300 square feet. I’m looking for advice of how best to use space and make space multi-purpose.
Thanks!
October 23, 2014 at 6:44 pm
suzukimom
Participant
We have 6 living in850 square feet.
We have a shelf with homeschool stuff. We have tables that fold up and store under bed that are used in living room while schooling.
October 23, 2014 at 7:14 pm
poodlemama
Participant
Suzukimom, that’s impressive! I’d love to see pictures of your learning space!
October 23, 2014 at 7:14 pm
Lovinlife
Participant
We have 4 living in 800 square feet and at times it can be challenging but it is SO worth it. Living simply and intentionally has changed our lives and views on so many things. We lived simply before in our 1,200sq foot home but this recent move had us evaluate and re-think our priorities and goals, in the best way!We often have people over and they can hardly believe it’s only 800 sq feet due to the intention behind each space.

For example our school room (that doubles as our office as we run a business as well) is in our bedroom with a room divider to visually divide up the space. We do workboxes so that eliminates a place for our school books. We use a morning basket as well for our subjects that we do together each morning. I have wooden crates (Walmart $10/each) that hang on our wall to organize all of our home/business items. I used those same crates in the kids bedroom to house books. It’s a cute and functional way to organize quickly. I do lots of binders and keep them stored in those shelves as well.
When we were purging and selling for the move we asked ourselves what the intention was for each item. If it didn’t serve a functional purpose it was given to someone or sold online. Living this way has been very freeing and liberating and has brought us closer (literally!!!) as a family since we all share the same goals.
Best of luck on your move and enjoy that trip to Europe, what a beautiful memories your family will make!
October 23, 2014 at 9:15 pm
Kayla
Participant
We are a family of 5 in 1200 sq ft, and ice been looking for smaller places! I have a living/ dining/ homeschool room. The closet has all our school stuff. Our bedroom also has my industrial sewing machine and serger so I can sew during naps today r after bedtime of I need to. We don’t have any furniture that is single purpose. Under beds have totes or drawers. Our bench at the dining table opens to store linens in. I have purged so much and it is awesome. As soon as kids clothes are too small they are passed to somebody else. We have almost no toys which means less headaches about picking up. When you simplify the junk it really frees up your time
October 23, 2014 at 11:21 pm
3fallingleaves
Participant
I long for the simplicity you all are describing. I just am so at a loss or how to create it. I’ve been purging over the years but there is so much stuff still. We use most of it. Even though our home is plenty big for the six of us, it has poor storage–no laundry room, no pantry, no linen closet, no bathroom closets, no coat closet (6 people in Alaska have a good amount of winter gear!), two tiny kid bedrooms…I know this home could be so much better if I were more gifted in this area. I also have zero time to plan and execute any changes…anyway I don’t know what help you could give without seeing the space…I wish you could all come over!:-). Any advice appreciated!!!
October 24, 2014 at 8:07 pm
erin.kate
Participant
We have 6 of us in 1200sf (but we do have a lot of outdoor space). I wrote a little blog post showing our small space and how we bring school into our living spaces, and our lifestyle. We love our little house … it is cozy and we live below our means. We have family who just bought a 4000+sf house for less people and I just cannot imagine being so spread out. 🙂 We also live very intentionally and simply and we don’t buy new things unless we gift something first.

http://marmaladesorrow.weebly.com/blog/an-atmosphere
October 24, 2014 at 8:44 pm
suzukimom
Participant
Well, I don’t really have pics – it is our living room. On this blog post there is a picture of one of our tables
http://maplehillacademy.blogspot.ca/2014/02/moms-proud-mom.html

October 24, 2014 at 9:34 pm
vikingkirken
Participant
We’re a family of 6 (going on 7) with about 1100 sq feet. We do have a few unfinished areas–an attic where we store off-season/off-size clothes and seasonal things like Christmas stuff; and a small basement laundry/storage area.
We are finishing up major renovations right now (that brought us up from 650 sq ft to the 1100 we have now). We were gifted with cabinets from friends who were redoing their kitchen, and two of the uppers flank the fireplace now. One holds all our homeschool books and paperwork–the doors are nice for hiding mess. (My hubby really hates clutter, so any school stuff that’s visible needs to be neat and organized.) The other holds all our music books and small instruments/accessories–we are all into music in this family! Guitars are hung up on the walls. I also have a school basket by the fireplace that holds all the “basic” stuff we use every day–Bible, math books, history notebook, etc.
As part of the kitchen renovation, we incorporated a dining area… to save space, we have a bench along one wall–that allows us to push the table a lot closer to the wall than if we had chairs. I have dreams of a big chalkboard over that bench; right now I’m using a repurposed old easel chalkboard we took apart and screwed to the wall–so we’re not tripping over the easel anymore.
We have high shelves in several rooms. They’re mounted just low enough from the ceiling to fit books and binders, so they’re above head height and really take no living space at all. One in the entry hall has baskets for hats/scarves/gloves and outgoing items. Also wall shelves over two end tables, above seated head height, for all our board games. Eventually I’d like to get small pendant lamps for those tables to free up the surfaces too. Shelves or cabinets can also go above dressers, no worry about hitting your head there and they don’t jut into living space that way–a nice substitute for a linen closet if you don’t have one, you could get creative with pretty baskets if you want it to look nicer. Kids store linens in underbed storage containers.
We are constantly purging toys, and trying to get better at not bringing them into the house in the first place! We’ve started instituting a rule that available storage determines how many toys you get to keep, not the other way around.
If you have an IKEA nearby, go check out their room displays–tons of great ideas there!
October 26, 2014 at 3:44 am
poodlemama
Participant
Thanks for all the encouragement! I’m excited for this new chapter, it’s actually the house we moved out of 8 years ago when baby #3 was born. Funny how priorities change over time!
October 26, 2014 at 5:32 am
3fallingleaves
Participant
Erin.kate I love all the pictures! You definitely have a gift of decorating and organizing. It looks like such a nice place to BE. Lots of good ideas from all but I love to see pictures!!
October 28, 2014 at 3:24 pm
LindseyD
Participant
Good for you! I love hearing stories of people who are taking drastic steps to live more simply. We have done the same thing by recently moving, not only to a different region of our state, but also by selling our 3,200 sq. ft., 3-story home and moving into a 1,000 sq. ft. apartment. It has been wonderful!
Edit, edit, edit. Downsizing requires that you be able to let go of things that you don’t absolutely need. I’m not a sentimental person, so this is easy for me; but I understand that it can be difficult for others. We got rid of antique furniture, books, toys, clothing, and more in order to make this dream a reality for our family. Staying focused on the big picture was key whenever we would get discouraged or tired of garage sales and trips to Goodwill. I had a few moments of pause about some of our furniture and books, but the only thing I got rid of that I’ve regretted so far has been my second Crock Pot! LOL
In a small space, you have to look up. Take advantage of empty wall space for shelving. We even custom built some shelving for our apartment that I hope we’ll be able to take with us and use in our next space.
We had a dedicated school space before, and now we school all over the house. I keep a morning basket in our living room for books we use daily as a family. Each child has a nice bin for their individual books, notebooks, copywork, etc., that is brought from their room to the living room each morning. Right now, dd is reading on the couch and ds is doing math on the floor of his bedroom. Sometimes he’ll do math at the dining table. Just letting them sprawl out and work in whatever way is most comfortable for them has been freeing for me.
Get creative with your space. We have 2 hall closets in this apartment. We took the door off one, added a desk-height shelf, and ran electrical through the wall to make a closet office. The other closet is our second pantry and vacuum cleaner closet. You see, we didn’t have enough clothes to fill the bedroom closets AND the two hall closets–even though all 4 closets were intended for clothing. So we improvised and recreated the space to work for us. Each of us has only 1 coat, so we don’t need a dedicated coat closet.
We try to focus on spending money on experiences rather than stuff. And when we do buy stuff, we don’t buy cheap. We buy for quality, not quantity. I only have 2 pairs of fall-ish/winter shoes, but I spent well on them. I chose shoes that would go with anything, that were made well, and would be in style for longer than one season. That’s just one example, but the rule applies with just about everything we purchase. This also means that we save up for larger purchases–such as the new mattress hubby and I have decided to buy!
To be fair, I’ll also disclose that we are renting a small (10×10) off-site storage space. Because we aren’t planning on being in our apartment more than a year, there were some items that we knew we would need in our next home, such as the BBQ grill, lawn equipment, hubby’s tools, some seasonal decor, as well as the majority of our book collection (which is in plastic tubs). The unit is nowhere near full, but you may find it necessary to allocate a monthly amount to storing items you don’t have room for or can’t part with.
Some practical things that might help you envision what living in a smaller space looks like…
If you can watch the show Tiny House Nation, it’s fantastic. The first season is over and the second season starts in January, but I highly recommend it.
On Pinterest, search terms like “apartment hacks”, “small space living”, “tiny house”, or “small space storage”.
Good luck and happy downsizing!
Lindsey