My Prepared Enviornment

My house is Celina-Lin's house just as much as it belongs to my husband and me. We share it, so out the door goes any magazine spread style of decorating and in comes what is best for the space, my family, and embraces my creativity. It may seem cluttered, "what toys in the living room?", but a least she puts the space to good use! I strongly dislike wasted space, every bit of space that can be used gets used. I cannot do anything drastic like knock out walls or paint pretty colors since I rent, so I had to get creative. I also have a very small space to to lots of stuff in, so my design is multifunctional.

I said before, reading Barbara Curtis became a launching point for me to create my "prepared environment" as she said. Get creative when doing something this drastic, don't be afraid to step out of the mould and create an expression of you. My house now says Tiffany, it is an expression of me.

We have a small, three bedroom, house. Two of the rooms are occupied by my dad and sister, leaving the third room for Celina-Lin, Isaac and me (we co-sleep by choice, not forced circumstances). This poor idea of a master bedroom houses two computers, two homemade work centers/bookcases/desks, mine is bigger because it holds my craft area, our roll up floor bedding, a television, three 6' bookcases, and exercise balls for computer chairs. A lot in such a small room. Any way, under the largest desk I have a collection of Celina-Lin's toss pillows for her to lay on, arrange, bury me, build forts, or whatever her heart desires to do with them. At the end of the desk is 6' bookcase with the lower half for her to put her books on. I have two computer accessories for her to use on my computer, one is an art center and the other is an educational game system. The TV is for her shows.

In my stairwell, I began hanging pictures I drew in high school that I used to think weren't any good, now I think they are neat. These were framed and hung at her level so she could appreciate them. She has her own gallery here as well. At the bottom of the stairs I have three small mirrors, hung at her level for her to look in. I also hung a coat rack here at her level.

My downstairs is part living room, part play room, part homeshool area, part dining area, and part kitchen. All her toys are down here organized nicely into pull out baskets in a grate/cube thing I created. Each basket has a specific type of toy with a label on it for her to identify where each thing should be put away at. She also has a play kitchen with plenty of play food and a real ceramic tea set for her to take care of.

Across the room from the toys is her homeschool area. This also has a cube/grate set that serves as open storage for all of her exercises. On top of this area she has her own collection of breakable things as well as some silk flower arrangements I have made for her. She also has another real and breakable tea set here as well. These breakable things that teach her grace of movement are her responsibility to take care of, a challenge she is living up to quite well. Here also is a small child table with four chairs, for her to paint at, work at, draw at, eat at, whatever suits her, it is hers.