{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 5~School Shelves

This may not be an issue for some, but to a homeschool family it can become a "not so hidden" area that can be overwhelming. Some women collect shoes..I collect books to educate my family. They are my treasures. Shortly after we moved into this house I found out that our local sewing center was going out of business and selling everything including their fabric racks. I knew I was looking for shelving for all my treasures and was thrilled to find that the solid wood fabric shelves were about eight feet tall and ten feet wide. Dan would have to add a few shelves and after a couple of coats of paint, they would make the perfect bookshelves. The price was not bad at $50.00 each. I bought two. I have them lining the walls in my laundry room. On the first set I have the books that we use specifically for school. I sorted my books into subject matter and shelve them accordingly. When I need a field guide they are in the Nature section- a book on the pilgrims-in the history section. It makes it so much easier to find what I have. On the second set, I have put mostly fiction books that we may use for school but are mostly for entertainment. They are sorted mostly by size or series.  The first set of shelves also has a section of smaller shelves that I use for all of our school supplies. I dedicate one of those shelves for a library shelf. We keep all the library books on this shelf so that they don't get lost. That idea surfaced after paying for one too many lost library books. I use plastic pencil boxes to store extra pens/pencils/erasers/scissors etc. The pencil cases are usually on sale cheap with the back to school sales. I think we paid 88 cents each.  We keep crayons and markers in covered plastic shoe boxes that I 
bought

The first set of shelves

at the dollar store. I also have a larger Rubbermaid container that I keep coloring books and paper for Abi to be able to access whenever she wants. I also took the time to go through each book I own and put each title and author in an excel spread sheet on my computer. This helps me when I make my curriculum fair book lists- I know what I have and what I need. It took several days to add them all to the spread sheet but it was well worth it. Keeping this area organized brings peace to our school days.