Beginning the Big Classroom Makeover

I have been in my classroom for nine years.  I have NINE years worth of treasures and dust in my little classroom.  I spend so much time in room 203.  I want it to be BEAUTIFUL!  I keep seeing this logo in the school supply catalog...

I want MY perfect classroom!  I don't want my room to feel like a yard sale (lots of mismatched junk).  I have decided to start working on building my dream classroom.  How exciting is that???  After nine years, I need to show my room a little love.  It keeps me motivated and excited about going to work.  I am really going to work on this a lot over summer break, but I started it during spring break.

My first pet-peeve is all the colors of wood I have in my room.  I have light oak, dark oak, white, birch, and maple.  I decided to go with maple and birch.  These woods are very similar in color.  I like how light it is.

See the color problem?  Hate it!

This is all the awesome stuff that came off my shelves.  See why I need storage?

The first BIG step I took was to order cabinets.  I have NO built-in storage in my room and counter top work space would be SO nice!  I ordered cabinets to form a little L behind the desk I share with my aide.  I got my cabinets from Lowe's and it took them about five weeks to come in.  After I ordered my cabinets, I found out that Lowe's could not order the counter top that I wanted.  I am getting laminate because it is the cheapest choice and will work well for my room.  Lowe's only has laminate with a back splash.  I am building a "bar" that will have work space on each side, so I wanted rounded edges and no back splash.  I had to special order counters from another company.  They are still 2-3 weeks away.  Boo hoo!  Lowe's called me yesterday and told me that my cabinets were in.  My wonderful husband helped me pick them up.  They were going to charge me $250 to deliver them.  NO THANKS!!!

All loaded up and ready to go! 

I put the cabinets in place.  The counters will go over the fridge.  I am going to order dry erase board surface to go on the back of the cabinet that sticks off the wall.  The other side of this space is my writing area so a magnetic dry erase board will be PERFECT! 

I can't wait to get counters on!

I am going to order upper cabinets soon so that I can get them installed over the summer.  The desk is WAY too big for this area.  I think I can find a teacher willing to trade their tiny desk for this big one.  I will wait for school to end to swap it out.  I don't think all teachers are as excited about renovations right now as I am.    

My lower cabinets will not be "installed" in the school.  They will be attached to each other, and I will be able to take them out of the classroom if I choose to.  The upper cabinets will need to be attached to the wall, but the installers said they can be easily removed.  I am so excited to be doing this in my room!  It feels like a gift to myself.  I know that I could have spent the money on so many other things, but to be honest, I would WAY rather have a nice classroom than pedicures and coach purses.  I am kind of a dork like that!  I will keep blogging about the progress.  Hopefully it will turn out to be MY perfect classroom!

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Classroom Photos