The anatomy of a {home}school room/ before

Last month, I was able to attend a homeschool convention for the first time. I learned SO much and highly recommend attending a convention if you want to homeschool/do homeschool/ wonder what it’s all about. I really wish I’d gone four years ago (how can that be???) when I first started.
Now if you’re like me, when you hear the words “homeschool convention” you imagine long-blue jean- skirt-wearing-no-make-up-hair-up-in-a-bun-let’s-bash-public-school fiesta. That simply wasn’t the case- I came away refreshed, much more educated, and excited to start the school year. I even *gasp* got some cute fashion ideas from other attenders!
I texted my husband from one of the sessions (who was sacrificially home with ALL the children) and said, “Get ready to work on our school room!”
The key is, prior to a month ago, we didn’t have a dedicated school space. We started in the kitchen last year, then about halfway through the year moved up to our play room. Having toys/school space wasn’t a great idea and it simply wasn’t working for us. So we cleaned out all the toys and distributed them to the kids’ bedrooms and got to work.
Here are a few before pics:

All nice, organized, and calm right? 😉

We ended up giving away the corner desk in the far left- I couldn’t sit by a child while working, which I still need to do very often.

The shelf on the left is from IKEA and is great for book organization. We had to keep the TV (which someone gave us!) in here since there’s nowhere else for that monster to go in our house.