Back to School Furniture...for Educational Purposes, of course

While everyone is looking forward to the official last long weekend of summer, there is another annual event looming on the horizon that is generally greeted with mixed emotions. Parents love it but kids, not so much. Yes, it’s time to get ready to go back to school.

Getting their children ready to go back to school for most parents, means buying new clothes, school supplies and all those electronic devices necessary for learning and playing. But what about getting ready for school at home? It is important for children, especially older ones, to have a place to do homework, do research on the internet and somewhere to store stuff and get organized for the next day’s activities. With all the other expenses involved with getting your children outfitted for the back-to-school trek, you might be reluctant to consider buying furniture right now. Tempting as it is to reclaim your dining table or kitchen counter, a new computer desk is a low priority. And besides, you really don’t have the space.

But it doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. Cymax Stores offers a number of neat (and inexpensive) solutions. There is such a wide variety of computer desks to choose from that you are sure to find something that will meet all of your decor and budget requirements.

An unused corner in your teen’s bedroom or in the family room is the perfect place for a corner desk. Corner desks can have all of the features and conveniences of an executive-style desk, but are more compact. In addition to drawers, a place for the CPU and a pull-out keyboard tray, they can include other useful features like built-in organizers, a hutch and a CD holder.

To make your computer desk even more convenient, choose a computer station with casters, or a more compact version, a computer cart. This gives you and your family the option to move the computer desk from one place to another; even from one room to another as needed or necessary.

If you have younger children and feel more comfortable if you can keep an eye on them while they are doing their homework, especially when using the computer, consider purchasing a computer armoire. They provide an ideal work environment, again, with many of the features found in a standard desk, but when homework time is over or dinner is ready, you can close the doors, effectively hiding the computer (and any other clutter you don’t want to see).

And don’t forget to organize yourself. There are a number of easy storage solutions, such as desk organizers for all of the paperwork your child will bring home. Having someplace conveniently in sight where you can keep consent forms, permission slips and other school-related documents, will make it painless (well, almost) for everyone involved.

Inflexible Walls

There is something of basic human nature in the need for many of us to make use of every last piece of space available to us, just the same way as it is for others to discern the value of openness in relation to optimum efficiency and general well-being. For business owners in today’s increasingly-impinged office spaces, finding a happy medium between the two is a challenging necessity.

I’m reminded of an ongoing issue in my own family, and likely many others. My mother is more of a pack rat while my father is every bit a ruthless purger. Her solution to any and all items that do not fit into being located somewhere specific in the home is that they be placed in the garage, with the logic “that’s what the garage is for.” This is decidedly to the chagrin of my father, who sees it as his automotive / yard works sanctum with an ordered chaos to it that needs be understood by he and he alone.

Similarly, it is quite likely that the interests of productivity and work climate in the office may come to be at odds with each other as concerns space management; particularly as a host of factors make the modern office smaller and smaller all the time. Add to the conflict the fact that employees are more frequently wearing more than one hat and need greater technology-thus-space at their disposal, and owners or managers are obligated to give more thought to office layout than they likely ever have before.

In much the same way Rubbermaid (tm) tubs and stackable plastic shelving have created harmony between Ma and Pa, modular office desks and workstations from Cymax Stores are an ideal means to ensure finding that balance. Further, the convenience of online shopping at Cymax means you can re-coordinate your office without leaving it should you so choose.

Impressive advances in modular design mean it is easier than ever to combine office desks with a Bush hutch and / or a peninsula desk or return bridge to accommodate employees’ ever-growing need for more work surface space. Built to be sturdy, durable and a quality hybrid of function, style and ergonomics, Bush office products are sure to meet your every criterion.

Similarly, a corner desk or corner office suite is an optimum means of utilizing space in a most efficient manor. Adding a corner hutch adds vertical storage / filing capacities, and although most offices today are striving for at least some semblance of the open office concept, cubicle panels are another office staple to be found at Cymax Stores.

As much as the Christmas decorations will be a fixture of my father’s garage for 55 weeks of the year, an

ever-increasing quantity of office workstations and related items are sure to be an inevitability of your office. As your business grows, so will your office. However, your office space will most certainly not and the inflexibility of those walls will dictate you either move to one more spacious or make the best of what you’ve got.

For those who would choose the latter, a visit to cymaxstores.com may well be in your future.

Elvis Lives! (In the Suburbs)

On Saturday morning, I am woken up by Elvis and bagpipes. I lean over to see if my alarm clock is stuck between radio stations, soon realizing that I hadn’t set an alarm. It is Saturday. Saturday equals sleep for me.

Perplexed, I get out of bed and peek through my curtains. And there he is, in all his glory: Elvis – clad in a white bedazzled, studded shirt with the collar flipped up, and matching white bellbottom pants with a belt that you could see from space. Yes indeed, Elvis is alive and he is crooning, “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog” at my window.

The bagpipes are about twenty feet away from Elvis (not far enough). I am having flashbacks of my childhood: my mother drilling our Scottish heritage into my head by means of endless recordings of her favorite pipers and my father trying to instill in me what “real” music should sound like by playing LPs of Elvis, playing along with his guitar. I watch the pipers, and in my head, I go through the motions of Scottish country dancing – ugh. I turn my focus back to Elvis, and I swear one of my legs starts to wiggle, but it may just be pre-caffeine jitters.

I have never thought to imagine the King of Rock ‘n Roll and a band of twelve pipers go head-to-head for the spotlight on a suburban street in May. Nor what they are here for in the first place. I just moved to the suburbs after living in the city my entire life. In the city, Elvis might make an appearance, but only in the form of an over-confident, slightly inebriated fan, after closing time at the karaoke bar. But pipers? Not so much. I’m at a loss, so I walk into my den, where my community calendar is pinned up on a corkboard on the back panel of my workstation hutch. I flip through the calendar as I rub the sleep out of my eyes.

The May Day Parade! Upon realizing this, I am perhaps a little over zealous, but I have never really lived in a community before – the only parades I’ve gone to are more like protests than anything else. Wrapping my duvet cover around my shoulders, and with slippers on my feet, I visit the coffee maker for my essential caffeine kick (which did help my leg stop swaying) and then head for the deck.

One of the beauties of living in suburbia is that I have a rooftop deck – not a tiny Juliette balcony that looks out to a concrete alley between city blocks that I can only fit on if I lean up against the wall. No, this deck is huge and amazing and now that I can fit more than a body on my deck, I have completely spoiled both this deck and myself with stunning, quality patio furniture. But what feels like the greatest thing about this deck today is that it has a perfect view of the entire parade.

The parade lasts for a good hour and a half. Elvis and the piping band are followed by heaps of different community groups – from kids’ sports teams and school bands to War Veterans and vintage cars to Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. When all that is left is a few lonesome streamers and candy wrappers, I get up from my porch swing, head inside to my couch to catch up on the sleep that Elvis interrupted, with a smile on my face and an old song in my head.