We all love our loft space, but after moving in you may look at the room and think, “Okay…now what?”
There are numerous ways to use a loft based on your family’s needs and lifestyle; it can be a second living room, a TV room, an at-home office, a reading nook, a playroom – the possibilities are endless.
In a new series on the Lombardo HomeMade blog, we’re exploring ideas for transforming your loft into the room you’ve always envisioned. With school in session for both our Michigan and Missouri homeowners, we thought it was time to get academic with our loft space and turn it into a homework station perfect for your family’s little brainiacs.
Follow these 5 tips to turn your loft into the perfection homework station:
1) Set up multiple seating areas. Your kids need plenty of table space for completing their math worksheet or social studies handout, but when it comes to finishing the novel they need to read for their language arts class, a cozy chair with good back support is the way to go. Set up a variety of seating areas that can best accommodate any project or assignment your kids bring home this year. Make sure there’s extra seating for group study sessions, or for those Sunday afternoons when everyone’s working on big projects at once!
2) Layer your lighting. If you can, put your workspaces near windows so studiers can take advantage of natural lighting (when it’s available). Add strong overhead lighting, such as recessed lights, as well as a variety of floor lamps and table lamps with multiple brightness settings for more direct lighting.
3) Add a space to store supplies. Nothing stalls productivity like pulling out your math homework and realizing you don’t have your calculator. Or protractor. Or even your math book. Keep everything you might need during your study session – like pencils, erasers, pens, highlighters, textbooks, notebooks, rulers, calculators, dictionaries, and glue sticks – within easy reach by adding shelves, cubbies, and storage bins to your loft.
4) Don’t forget the study playlist! We all have that playlist that helps us get in the zone when studying for an exam or working on a big project. Instead of listening with headphones while you study, fill the entire loft with your power playlist by adding a radio, iHome, or Bluetooth speakers to the room. Just make sure everyone agrees on the playlist – you don’t want to derail a homework session with an argument over music!
5) Keep study break materials nearby. No matter how focused you are, we all need a study break every now and then. In fact, giving yourself a 5-10-minute break every 90 minutes can help boost productivity! Stock your loft with everything you need for an energy-boosting study break: an egg timer (so your 10-minute break doesn’t stretch into an hour), coloring books, floor space for stretching and exercising – anything that pulls you away from the textbooks and screens and helps you refocus and recharge. You can even add a couple of your favorite dance songs to your study playlist so you have an excuse to get up and boogie periodically during your study session!
Have you used your loft as a homework station? Leave your ideas in the comments section!
