Day: April 19, 2004

We went down to Costco as soon as it opened on Saturday morning because we wanted to buy a filing cabinet and a barbeque. We got both and a round table that we think will be a great platform for the kids to do homework. The barbeque looks like it is going to work great. It looks good and works well right now. I hope it lasts. It is an off brand that does not have the fit and finish of even our little Weber gas barbeque. I think I will pay the extra $50 and get a name brand next time. Here are some pictures of Christian and I trying it out:

Ken and Christian trying out the new barbeque

Planning

When we looked at the shelving we wanted at Home Depot and calculated up the cost, it was evident that we could get something a lot nicer for around the same price by just buying some standalone shelves. It is amazing how much that stuff costs. Lorena might even try to find something at a garage sale. We calculated that it would cost us about $120 to put up about twenty feet of the nice wire shelves we wanted. For under $200 we could buy a very nice bookshelf and some nice plastic bins to go with them. We are going to rethink the shelves a little and try again later.

We have already started refering to the downstairs closet as the “Homeschool Closet”. We really haven’t been making great use of it. As you can see from the picture below, it is just a place to accumulate “stuff”. That stuff is really starting to build up and we have been in the house only about eight months.

We paid $129.99 for our new filing cabinet. We were thinking of getting two narrower cabinets, but when we saw this one we thought it was big enough so we just bought one. Lorena will use the top drawer for our bills and other papers. We will give the second drawer to Kelly and the third drawer to Christian for storing their homeschool work. We can hold the bottom drawer in reserve. We think we can get the thing into the Homeschool Closet with enough room for some decent bookshelves and bins, but it might be a little bit of a trick.

We also found a round table to do homeschool work that we plan to store in the closet or out in the garage when it is not in use. We paid $32.99 for the table. The kids are not tall enough yet to sit in regular chairs and work comfortably at a regular size table. I will have to find or make some chairs that will allow them to sit with their feet flat on a stool so they can work comfortably. I think that is a very important consideration.

I have decided to add a new “Costs” section to record our homeschool expenses as the come in. I will add the books we already bought a few days back to today’s list so we will be caught up.

Costs

When we got to Home Depot this weekend, we had second thoughts about putting up wire shelves in the closet. Therefore, we did not get the closet finished as we had initially planned. We did, however, buy a brand new stainless steel barbeque, a study table, and a filing cabinet from Costco.