a new school room!

Isaiah's starting Third Grade and Marian begins Second Grade in just over a week!  We had hoped to start earlier but 我们束腰装修房子。  (It just sounds better in Chinese. We're doing some work at our house to make room for a new school room!)

So, we moved to this town thinking that we would educate our kiddos alongside another family whose kids are perfectly matched age-wise with our learners.  We thought there'd be a tiny school, we'd rent a small apartment for our 7 students (Arrow Academy, gotta jump on a chance to use Arrow... for something :).  But those guys wisely headed back to their home country for mama to give birth to their fifth little one.  So we're at it alone now.

We sure don't need to rent a separate space to school our four, but with not an overly spacious 3 bedroom apartment and the reality of no libraries, no kids museums, no place else to go for class time, we wanted to try to rig some way to have a designated learning place for our kiddos.  Our little two will meet with a Chinese teacher while I try to teach the big two their English subjects and we just wanted PLACE for all of this....  Plus, Matt's little start-up company got registered in our home (this is a huge grace from the Lord, that this was approved!!).  We thought we'd be paying for rent for two other little places..... but now, no extra rent at all!

With all this, we decided to finish off one patio off our upstairs.  It came ready to be finished- had three walls and most all our neighbors have finished off that patio as a room already.  We got the basic model home (which we were thrilled for, to get to design things to suit us best) and with the money we're saving from not needing to rent and from going with the trash-truck movers (not really, but they were so bad to our stuff... good thing they were so cheap!) we are finishing off that needless patio to turn it into a little cave-like room for Matt and I (it's not too spacious and the ceiling is quite low- but it works!!).  That means the first glorious room upstairs will be the new school room.

Friends, I still feel shocked to enjoy this room so much, and that this beautiful place is in our very own home!  I've never been in a room that I think would make a nicer school room for our kids than this....

Our apt. was a 3bed- 2 bath.  Now the upstairs room will feel more like a second living area.  A wide open, spacious, gracious, lofted-cieling (incredible, eh!?   Here in China? Yes, amazing isn't it!?) family room/school room.  Our new little bedroom is off that back hallway- near the door to the bathroom.

The big room is so much better as a school room than as our room.  As it is now (we're just half way through building the new room) I rarely go in our room all day long.  But it is such a light, bright, beautiful room, it's a pity to not have an excuse or an opportunity just to be there.  But as the school room.... we'll be there lots :)

The whole deal is a gift- that we're able to build it, the kids all enjoying the process of watching the workers, the cute little bed shelf we'll have over in our new room, and the fantastic new space for our family.... space I'm also super eager to fill with cute neighborhood kids playing and learning together...

We are so grateful for this gift from the Lord!!

Here's a pictorial view of our process...

the patio- with three walls.  The door was maybe 5.5 feet tall...

in the building just beyond you can see our neighbors have already built in their patio-rooms

our nice construction guy (who worked alone with his wife for almost the entire 2.5 week project) jackhammered up just the right amount of cement floor to lay down the floor heating (water tubes) and then recover with cement to make it nearly match the floor one step down from the original two steps that led out to the original patio.  If I could only explain how chabuduo (literally, "about", it means Not exact, Not precise) jobs are here usually, you'd know that it was a treat to see the floor completed so well!  

see the floor all one level from the first step?  :) 

Our kind worker friend, Mr. Yang, is about 5.4 I'd guess.  And the ceiling looks a bit goofy or angle but it's only the sides that have low, low angles to them, the rest of the roof is flat and just high enough for me to nearly flat palm it.  It's cozy and sweet....  and here's my favorite part....

the window sill - bedside table.   Pintrest said that small bedrooms need built-ins and that's handy b/c this one built-in was ready to go from the railing that was there earlier.  

Look at these amazing cleaner helpers!  

And I guess I have to have two favorite parts...  I love the floor!  Who knew that cheap fake wood could look so nice!?  I am one grateful mama!

UPDATE:  This room is such a sweet provision for our family!  We could live just fine in a 3 bedroom place... but with Matt's company running in our home, and our 4 kids homeschooling (and our super desire to get to do co-ops with homeschooling friends here), it is a fantastic gift to have a place for everyone!  Today, the second day of school, Matt was sick in bed all day with sinus trouble. I am so happy we could close him in a private place and give him some rest while all the madness continued just outside his door!  The little kids with their Chinese teacher upstairs and the big kids for English lessons with me and piano and history lessons all running on computer downstairs...  It worked!  I'm so happy-grateful-humbled-amazed....  such a gift- this space!!!

Maybe I'll get around to posting pics of our new bedroom all moved in and of the new school room.... but honestly, pretty pics of our home are sometimes hard to come by.  Guess I'll just have to eat my pride and post some regular life pics.  I'll try!  I'm sure eager to share what a joy and a blessing this home is to our family, sports company, homeschool kids and homeschool community!