We homeschool, too. I don't keep our supplies in the kitchen, though. We homeschool in the dining room, so the currently used supplies are there, with things we're not currently using in the storage under our stairway. I have storage units planned for our dining room that include book shelves, closed cabinets for games and such, drawers for pencils, scissors, etc. and file drawers to hold not only record and master copies files, but work books and notebooks that can be stored that way. So you could consider just a good, roomy bank of cabinetry that you can use for school stuff that someone else could use for food and/or dishes.

I wish I could remember the name of the person who planned 2 walk-in pantries for her kitchen...One for food and one for homeschool supplies and materials. I thought that was an amazing idea.

Shelly_K has a 'pocket office' off her kitchen, which also looks like it'd be a good spot for storing shelves of paper and books. I can't find that her plans are available to view any more, but I found the following discussion about small offices, and she describes hers, as well as others share their plans and office spaces.

We saw a model home once that had this setup. Sorry it's so small and fuzzy...But I think you can see the more open office area with the 'supply room' between it and the pantry. They had gift wrapping and gardening supplies in the supply room, but you could use it for school supplies. I loved this set-up.

Here is a link that might be useful: kitchen office discussion

We homeschooled too, and in the kitchen. We have a counter height bar and I put all the school stuff in the counters under it. Worked out well for us because there were two door under there & I have two kids so they each had their own space. We could all sit together or they could do their bookwork while I cooked dinner or whatever. (I used the white refrigerator as my dry erase board).

If the dining room had been convenient, I think I would have preferred they sit at a table and I would probably have used a china cabinet as our storage cabinet. I did like putting it all away when they were done.

Do you currently homeschool in the kitchen? Or if not, is that your goal?

Having the HS supplies next to the pantry does sound great as long as it's close to your primary HS area.

Our renovation is complete except for the backsplash and we have had full functionality for about 6 months so we've gotten to see how our plans worked out.

Flexibility was the goal. We turned our formal living room into a HS room via furniture changes: a comfy couch for me, 2 desks for the kids, a supply tower, and the keyboard for piano lessons.

Structurally and design-wise, in the remodel we did some things with HSing in mind: We took out the eat-in area of the kitchen and changed the formal dining room into the everyday (and only) dining room. It's adjacent to the HS room so there is a large table connected to the area. We usually use it when I have to separate the kids for whatever reason. One stays at the desks, one goes to the table. My son retreats there when intense concentation is required of him. He's in a "different room" but he isn't walled off and is only about 12 feet from me.

Adjacent to the dining room is the kitchen where we designed a large island so that I can cook while they do school, although that doesn't happen too often.

So we have 3 school areas: desks, table, island. And they are all within close proximity with clear eyesight lines.

For supply storage: We have bookshelves and hutches in every single room. The most used are in the HS room and they have doors on bottom and shelves on top. All crafts in progress/markers/crayons/paper/etc is kept hidden below, and the supplies/books we use everyday are on the shelves. I love it.

In the dining room is a hutch with bottom doors and that entire bottom is also for paper, books, crafts, stuff.

We have been HS for 4 years now and I love this set up better than any of my other set ups. I love having a huge table right next to the HS space and I love being able to HS in the kitchen when needed, yet not have any of the stuff in there. I love the connectedness of the room options and having so many storage options - hidden and open works wonderfully.

We planned a large island with seating for six and with four outlets for laptops. The kitchen table also has a floor outlet under for anyone who wants to sit there. Be sure to have good lighting!! I keep everything on shelves elsewhere, but everything gets dragged into the kitchen.

We have a dining room table that seats eight. I left the panels in so they don't get dinged. The three of us eat on one end, and my kid does her homework on the other end. When my parents come, we clear the whole thing off. She has a freestanding cabinet for school stuff and office supplies.

I don't homeschool, but I came across a blog called August Fields and they built a new home with a beautiful area for homeschooling. Her house is amazing and she has great style.

She painted her cabinets the famous Fieldstone color from the Sally Wheat kitchen. I think it looks fantastic.

Take a look and good luck!And make sure you check out all the areas of her home.

Here is a link that might be useful: August Fields Blog

Thank you! Thank you! I appreciate all of the suggestions. It's late, but I wanted to make sure that you all knew I hadn't posted and then disappeared. The weekend got sucked up by painting a bedroom and then having my DH and 11 year old show up a day earlier than expected with my son's first deer - so then we had to deal with the meat. If he wasn't so excited, it would have been a truly awful way for me to spend my Sunday. But now the kitchen is back in order and I can go back to trying to plan - after sleep :) I'm going to sit down tomorrow and go over your suggestions more thoroughly - but I did want to say thank you!

We converted a second living/dining area to be our "schoolroom." As part of the remodel, we're adding wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along one wall, as well as a built-in hutch kinda area so we can use the room later as a normal dining room / study.

Don't know if it works yet since we're still under construction, but one thing to consider is to have any bottom cabinets made to counter height, and have electrical outlets right there at the shelves. We did that with all the bookshelves so that we could use them as walk-up workstations, puzzle or gaming places, testing zones, impromptu computer "desks" or something. We almost left some of the bottom cabinets open so we could use them with barstools as true desks, but opted for walk-up instead so we could keep the storage and look.

Small drawers in a hutch/work area could hold all the little stuff ... pencil boxes, tape and glue sticks, stickers, whatever.