Back-to-school: Short on wall space?

As I was preparing for a new season of learning, I was trying to think of new ways to freshen up our tired, little school space.
Doesn't every teacher want to decorate her classroom for a new school year??

We don't have the luxury of an entire room that we could dedicate just to our schooling.
We use a room that has multiple functions in our home.
It is also our main dining area with a large table and 8 chairs.
The piano is in this room, as well as our computer.
When you walk through our front door, this is the room you enter.
I just don't want to take down the entire collection of family pictures on the wall to make space for posters and other fun things to see, so I remembered this idea I saw at a friend's house.

I put both the leaves in my table and laid out several posters I already had, plus a few I picked up at the dollar store.

Then I purchased a sheet of clear, plastic vinyl from Wal-Mart.

It was in the craft section folded in a 54" by 9 ft. sheet.

I just laid that sheet of vinyl flat over all the posters and stapled it to the bottom of my table.

I know that not many people are ready to use heavy duty staples on the underneath of their dining table, but I can't have it sliding off.

This way, it's super easy to clean....no glue mess after our lapbooking projects.

And if we're having a special dinner, I can just cover it up with a fancy table cloth!!

I'm not exactly sure why I didn't think of this years ago!!!