Homework Room Makeover

How to turn a small, unused room with no windows into a bright homework room including custom built-ins, free printable art and DIY board and batten.

We finally decided to create a homework room in the office area of our home! In the original plans of our home this weird little room in the center of our home was actually the dining room and it had a small opening into the kitchen/breakfast room. The dining room also bowed out in a weird way into the kitchen/breakfast room area (see below). We hated the bump out because it took 2ft out of our breakfast room and seemed to cut into our open floorplan concept so we had our builder change it.

So we were trying to figure out this small 9x10ft room on our main floor that has no windows.

At first we were going to make it an office, but honestly we have laptops and work mostly from the couch.

Our next thought was a craft room since we loved the ones in our first house and our second house, but as mentioned since this small room in our new digs has no windows so it wouldn’t really work (we love our natural light when crafting!).

Then we thought playroom, but Ellie has a big empty room upstairs that she likes better…. plus toys are messy and I really don’t want to see that daily on my main floor!

Next idea was a LIBRARY (see where this is going?!), but we mostly read in the great room… again because of the natural light and comfy couches. We loved the idea of big built-ins to store our books (mostly Ellie’s books… the kid is a book hoarder). But what would we really use the room for?

So back to our drawing board… WHAT do we want to use this room for? We definitely wanted built-ins, that much we knew. I also really wanted a place for Ellie to do her homework, craft, and work on school projects, etc. And we needed a place to keep Ellie’s book bag and soccer bag since they really have no other place.  Then Ben threw out there “what about a homework room?”. Um… is that a thing?! Apparently it is so TADA, we’re gonna have a homework room (slash library, slash kid craft room). Enter the ever-important mood board (I love mood boards!).

Since the room is small we can only fit the built ins, table and chairs, and a dry erase board. The dry erase board is for her to color, work out math problems, etc.

Homework Room Mood Board

Now, are you ready to see the completed room? Come take a tour of our favorite new space, and get ready for photo overload!

How To Create A Homework Room

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As mentioned last week, this room on our main floor is pretty small (just about 9x10ft) and sits between our dining room and family room just off the entry foyer. We really struggled with what to do with this space but it has quickly become my new favorite room in the house.

Built-Ins

The white built ins gave us a perfect place to store all of Ellie’s books. The kid LOVES to read. I actually have to shake my head at her for reading too much at times… in the bathtub, while eating breakfast, in the car…. she has a book with her wherever she goes!

By the way, if you ever get built ins or just buy shelving units, invest in shelf peg hole plugs. They really finish off the bookshelves and help the white blend in seamlessly so you don’t see a million of the drilled holes everywhere.

Besides books we filled the shelves with picture frames & printables, storage baskets from Target, and lots of greenery to add some color to this windowless room.

Homework Table

The table was actually a Christmas present to Ellie from my parents. She asked for a playroom table… seriously. The kid just wanted a place to do her crafts and color! My mom purchased it from Overstock but unfortunately I can’t seem to find this one anymore online. I did find a similar one here from Wayfair! You can find the chairs here (I purchased them separately), but let me know if you can find that specific table anywhere. Love that it’s a drop leaf round table. Folds down nicely and can be placed against the wall if we need more space in this room!

Dry Erase Board

On the table we have little buckets where we keep Ellie’s scissors, glue, and markers for her favorite part of the room… the magnetic dry erase board!

We purchased this dry erase board from Amazon and it’s awesome… and HUGE (3 x 4ft). It was super easy to put up… I bet we did it in under 15 minutes. Love that it has a marker tray, too. You need pretty strong magnets for it though, just an FYI, but it did come with 5 of them that work pretty well.

We also purchased a little white step stool for Ellie so she can reach the top of the dry erase board. Seriously love glancing into this homework room everyday and seeing Ellie’s drawings… melt my heart.

Alphabet Printables

On the other side of the room I hung three vintage alphabet printables. I actually created these for my nephew’s bedroom awhile back but edited the files a bit to work in this room. Another great option for artwork in this space of your own would be to print off some of these great homeschool quotes and frame them! Keep up the encouragement if your kids get discouraged easily doing homework.

On either side of the built ins Ben and I added some board and batten trimwork to break up the SW Storm Cloud paint color (it was getting dark in there for a room with no windows). We then added some white hooks so Ellie can hang her bookbag and soccer bag, etc.

The ceiling light is from Lowe’s, but you can also get it from Amazon if you’re into that 2 day free shipping like us 😉 We decided on this pendant since we love how the dark trim ties in with our hardwood floors. And the yellow and gray area rug is from Target. We actually had it in the entry foyer in our old house.

And that’s about it for the tour of our new homework room! Sure had a lot to show & say for a little 9 x 10ft room! Stay tuned because later this week I’ll share the free printables with you guys (including the little black and white framed ones on the bookshelves) and we’ll talk more about the board & batten.

Until then, I’m going to hang with this little peanut and maybe play a game of hangman!

If you’re interested in getting any of the items in our new homework room for a homework room of your own, you can click on any of the pictures below to shop!