an orange room

Tim's room is done! Finally! We pulled it together yesterday, and it's wonderful, not gonna lie.

It can't be toy storage either--that was a huge problem before, too much junk in the room. It was hard to take care of a room that cluttered.

We were using the closets as clothes storage--outgrown clothes in one, his dresser in the other.

I gave the baby girl clothes to Heidi. Long ago I gave all the boy clothes to Alicia and Dannell.

The few boxes that remained we carried to the basement, and moved his dresser out of the closet, and put in shelves to store the toys. This way we can shut the doors and escape the visual clutter.

the project beginning

closet doors

Tim wanted an orange room, so we found dark orange shade, and painted the woodwork white. Kari picked out a new bedspread for him, navy blue with a little orange and red. We found cream colored curtains and an orange, cream, and tan braided rug.

Jay carried up our aunt's little roll-top desk for him to use, and we slowly brought up his things from the guest room where he'd been camping the last couple months.


He was so happy with that desk, with the writing surface that slid out, the cubbies and drawers. He sat in the chair and pronounced the desk, "Sweeeet!"

We cleaned the guest room, and that's back to normal now too, very nice. His lego table is down there and finally he has room to work on those projects again.

While we were doing all this work, we had to empty a book case and move the books to another book case. He helped me, but he was distracted by the books, mostly by all the gorgeous children's books from National Geographic and World Book Publishers.

Most of these were bought by my mom years ago when his older siblings were in home school. They'd send us a book every month and send the invoice to her.

When we first started homeschooling, my mom was as nervous about it as I was. It felt like a huge responsibility, a scary unknown. She had a lot of questions, mostly the same ones I did.

1989

That first fall, 1989, she ordered us a set of World Book Encyclopedias, and honestly this is the most useful, important home school material we've ever had.

Even post-Internet twenty years later, these heavy, glossy books still are in use every day. Kids take them along in the car, up to their rooms. The D book became a bit tattered from Maria reading about dogs all the time.

We do less curriculum than ever now, but the kids have always read them just for fun.

Ten years ago, they bought us new set, more up to date, she said.

Tim's very dyslexic, is still a non-reader, in all honesty. He can pick out words, decipher sounds, write a little, all with much concentration. It's been very slow going.

Today though he told me, "When I can read, I'm going to very busy reading all these books."

"Oh, absolutely, Buddy. You're going to love reading."

Thanks Mom, for inspiring yet one more kid. love, Val