The Homework Room
Alright y’all, I am veering from straight-up organizing on this blog to a little more design and home reno because it’s super relevant to what a lot of us need in our lives right about now as our kids are suddenly schooling from home.
When we moved into this house five years ago, we went up a ton in terms of square footage. Suddenly, we had a front living room, dining room and a family room. Our kitchen has an eat-in space and we are not ‘formal diners’ so the front dining room became what our family would actually use – a playroom.
A few months ago, with our youngest approaching 3, I realized that we didn’t use the playroom like we used to. Our kids weren’t sitting on the floor playing with toys anymore or using their play kitchen. I always get excited about the thought of re-designing a space so I started to consider what the room should become.
Dining Room > Playroom > Homework Room
Our kids had been using our kitchen table for any homework and crafts and the thought of getting those off that table so it didn’t have to be cleaned up for dinner was exciting. I considered turning the room back into a dining room but I knew the table would constantly be used for homework and crafts, outside of our small group get togethers every now and then. So… why not make it a dedicated homework + craft space? Plus, that seemed a lot more fun to design. Enter the homework room!
Note: I had NO CLUE how happy I’d be about this decision come March and school suddenly happening inside my home.
I had been wanting to add a white brick wall for a loooong time and this was the perfect space. If I could break into my drywall to discover the original brick below, I would do it in a heartbeat! But I knew that wasn’t going to happen with our house, so faux brick was the next best option.
The brick wall was fairly easy and inexpensive. The part that made it more difficult in our space was the windows – cutting those out in the right space was difficult (or so I heard, from my husband!). Once he nailed the panels into the wall, I used drywall compound to cover the seams, caulked the edges, and primed and painted. I was kind of sad to add the desk on this wall because it was such an awesome picture backdrop (see that little swan?!)!
I wanted the space to look like it fit within our house – not just a desk area in our dining room. A desk that went the full span of the wall would look more built in. I created 3 spaces for chairs so there would be 3 dedicated desk spots for each of my girls. This meant adding in 4 drawer units to break up the space. These are also supports for the desktop. Each kid gets a drawer unit and the extra is for joint supplies. I asked each girl individually which desk area she would want and they all chose a different one… praise Lord Jesus! I did not have a plan if that wasn’t the case. I have a matching 4th chair that sits in the corner for when I need to pull up a chair for myself.
I typically steer towards whites and light colors but I went with navy on the drawer units and black on the chairs because, well… kids. I did not want to be upset about crayon marks and marker – the dark is much more forgiving! It is also why I went with an already finished butcher block counter – one of my favorite hobbies is staining but I didn’t want to be even the slightest bit bummed with a kid if they took a marker to hours of my work!
As of now, our kids don’t have any computers or anything that needs plugged in but at some point, it will be very easy to drill small holes in the back of the desktop to reach the outlets.
Keeping the drawers organized
Inside the drawers, I added liners to keep them from getting marked up with crayons, markers, glue spills, etc. The liners I chose are machine washable – perfect for a kid craft space! I used drawer organizers that are actually boxes from their old magnetic dolls and some plastic ones I love. The plastic ones are easy to move around and clean.
Functional Decor
I wanted to keep the brick wall pretty bare so that it worked well within our home and looked clean, although I did hang back up the wood arrows that I’d convinced my husband to make for me a few years ago.
I utilized the side wall to hang some shelves for small items. I chose these because they have sides to ensure nothing falls off. These shelves hold some functional décor – the pretty hourglasses I use when my girls are studying – it’s an easy and fun way to say “spend 5 minutes on these sort words” or “read for 30 minutes”. The colored jars are our behavior jars – good behavior means they start filling up and there are prizes for a full jar. I keep a small jar here for dull pencils so as we find them, they go in here until there’s a bunch to sharpen together. You’ll also see one of my hobbies – trying to become a green thumb. And of course, kid art is the best decoration for this space!
I love the look of a clean space and that’s why I went acrylic with the desk organizers. It’s not realistic to think my kids are going to open a drawer every time they want a marker or pencil so this was the next best option. The markers in here work as functional décor – they look so cute with all the different colors. These are actually acrylic makeup organizers but they work well for this as well. A slotted acrylic mail holder is great for papers they’re working on, notebooks and even an iPad. Risers display some of the things they wanted to – their plants and special things.
One great thing about this space is that is can do multi duty in the event we want to use this as a dining room – the desk makes an excellent buffet / serving table and we have room to bring in a long, folding table. We’ve already had quite the taco bar and ice cream sundae set up in here with friends and can’t wait until the day we can do that again!
I kept the small dresser in this room for dress up clothes. This dresser was my great grandma’s and was a rehab project when it finally made it’s way to me so it’s not only useful but special too.
My girls do still play with toys and read books of course so after a purge and donate, the rest got moved to our front living area where they’re tucked out of sight in our lockers.
Remote learning
With remote learning in full swing through the end of the school year for my kids, I added a few things to this room. A chalkboard/whiteboard so I can write down what the girls need to do for school for the day, and on the back whiteboard they can do spelling races, etc.
I also added a TV that has the ability to cast from my computer. This one has been pretty awesome – I can play the girls’ teacher videos, Jesus videos, etc on there for everyone to see while still doing stuff on my computer. I’ve even used this to answer a question – how to explain the difference between to, too, and two -google a kid youtube video and BOOM! (And yes, I named our home school and created a mascot – when else will I have the chance to do so?!)
I also added a long list of activities – ‘specials’ and ‘choice time’. This is nice because I don’t have to think things up, they are right there to choose from. But more so because it was exciting for the girls to see all of these fun things hanging up like Santa’s list.
I’m not a homeschooling Momma, I’m not a teacher, I’m just trying to get my kids through this time with happy memories, not fearful or sad ones, and hopefully learning a little along the way.
This is a hard time for a lot of people for a lot of different reasons, just remember to give yourself grace. Big, heaping spoonfuls of grace.
You can always check out my Pinterest for links to items used in this post.
Hi. I want to recreate this look. Could you tell me how you attached the 2 or 3 butcher block to each other and to the walls or cabinets? I’ve been trying to research it with no avail. I appreciate it!
Hi there! In our case it was 2 butcher blocks, one full piece and and a second cut to size to fit the length of the wall. The seam of the butcher blocks rests on the one of the cabinets and we simply screwed the butcher blocks to the cabinet from inside the cabinet up through the top of the cabinet and into the butcher block. Have someone push the butcher blocks together tightly while the other secures the block to the cabinet to ensure a tight fit. The butcher block is not attached to the wall at all and just rests on the cabinets (attached each cabinet with screws from inside the cabinet up through to the butcher block as described above). In fact, we do not have any part of the desks attached to the wall. It’s heavy enough that we do not have any issue with movement away from the wall.
Thank you! Could you please link where you purchased the butcher block? And do you think I could restrain an already finished block?
Click on the link above to Pinterest and everything is linked. I used a kitchen countertop from IKEA. You should be able to restain butcher block – you’d likely just need to sand the stain off first.
Can’t find the link with all the links of the things u used 🙁
Hi! The link to Pinterest is at the bottom of the page and all products are on there.
Hey! I LOVE this! I didn’t see where everything was linked, but maybe it’s because it’s older. Can you tell me which butcher block top or what sizes you purchased? Also where did you get that awesome locker???
Hi! The link to Pinterest is at the bottom of the page and all products are on there. I snagged the locker when a local business closed down but I saw them for sale on FB Marketplace all the time.
Karlby – found it!
Lovely! Can you Tell us exactly what countertop you used?
The link is on Pinterest, it’s the karlby from IKEA.
Ohhhh my gosh, those lockers! I need those!
Are the drawer units form Ikea as well?
Yes – the Alex drawers. The link to Pinterest is at the bottom of the page and all products are on there.
Hi!
Wow! What a beautiful job here! Really really inspiring! What is the total length of your counter? Thank you!