A homework station

We spent last week trying to organize the house a bit and empty out a few more moving boxes. We've been here six months - we're not quick unpackers! The challenge in this French house is that although all the rooms are spacious there is absolutely no built in storage. We have been slowly creating solutions with a variety of Ikea products and I'm happy to report, there are now shelves in the linen closet, cupboards in the laundry room and India finally has the desk and book shelf we promised her before we moved!

Whilst researching ideas for India's room I came across this idea for a Homework Station on Apartment Therapy and knew we needed one of those for ourselves. The girls do their homework at the dining table but the room, you've guessed it, has no storage for pens, pencils, paper or text books. Despite there being approximately 1000 pencils in the house, when it's time to start homework, invariably not one is to be found!


In the spirit of the original post, I looked around for a box to upcycle and this wooden wine case lurking in our cave was just the thing.


I used a couple of empty Bonne Maman jam jars to hold pencils, colours, erasers and the always elusive glue sticks. There's a pair of scissors in there now as well. Now everything has a place and the box fits neatly on top of the radiator when we're not using it.


I even sharpened all the pencils!


The red folders are these super well stocked Caran d'Ache pencil cases that Keith brought back as a gift for the girls when he used to travel through Geneva airport a lot. They were pricey but the quality is amazing. We've had them for three years, the leads in the pencils don't break, the markers still work and the eraser is the best. Everything you need to get your homework done, if only you would remember to put everything back once you're done and not lose it all. Hopefully our new Homework Station will keep everything in place... I'll keep you posted!