School House

Here is our school room "before" meaning this morning about mid morning. These are panoramic photos in a small room, so it's a little distorted but you can see the whole room.

I have to say, I regret that I didn't take the most embarassing "before" shot. The shot that shows the area below the window obscured by a table full of undone stuff. A lot of it ended up getting sorted on the desks to the left. I felt so good to actually be able to vacuum floor I hadn't seen in years.

For those of you who have seen this room as my former office, you will remember there were times when the only path to get in was between the door and the chair to the desk. There was no cleared space other than that. Why? I am not a super tidy person, but honestly, when you run a hectic business like I do, cleaning up incidentals becomes very secondary. Yes, it drove me nuts, but cleaning up my office has never made me money. Simple as that.

This is the now school room. The two chairs had been in our garage after being replaced by new chairs in our living room. Once I realized we would have space for them, I cherished the idea of having a reading area in this room. So to the far left, you can see the new printer I set up today and the laptop and the printer are the only big things on this desk (besides the DSL modem with the wireless router sitting on top of it).

Again, if you have been in my office before this big conversion, many times there was no space on the desk, just several piles of things that were secondary on my "to do" list.

Where is all that junk/undone things/etc? Good question. I sorted and sorted this morning. I ended up shredding/recycling most of it. Why? Because it was so outdated it was irrelevant. You can see on the panorama of the basement the small pile on the table to the right. Several things in there need to be dealt with, but my! I can do that!

Yes, to answer your question, my treadmill is right in the middle of my office space. I am hoping that has some lasting effects.

This has been a project that has been in my brain for over a year and it had to happen. I could not feel that unorganized and behind on my paperwork, and start homeschooling. I probably could practically, but I might have needed to be medicated.

I have to honestly thank T. She came to my house early last fall and hemmed and hawed around my house. Showed me a very good place in my basement to stick my desk, which I hadn't seen. Her vision has been with me this whole year as I have mulled and worked on this.

I also have to say, I can do a "neener neener" to her as well, and I think she'll be okay with that. She honestly didn't think the table with all the junk on it could make it space wise into the basement practically. Well, several more trips to Goodwill and another good purge (which she questioned if I could do, I swallowed hard and said yes) put the table comfortably in the basement. She also questioned if the chairs could go in the office, because again, it would require a whole lot on my part. I am proud to say, I did it. Thank you, T!

Can you tell I feel so good about this? I do. I am so proud of myself for getting this done. Honestly, my poor husband has been sick through most of this. He has moved a few things up and down the stairs, but mostly he's been keeping kids out of my way while I keep the vision going. Thanks to him as well. I can tell that once that table went downstairs today and the chairs came out of the garage, he could feel the end in site.

We both feel like if the school curriculum landed on our porch today, we could start schooling right now. We are about 95% complete. I still need to move a few things around inside of drawers and finish that small pile sitting downstairs. But the worst back-breaking part is over.

I have no idea what to do with myself tomorrow.....well, I do. I have to conduct a meeting tomorrow night. But you get my drift.