Room reveal time! It is now week 4 of this amazing challenge to makeover 1 room with only $100 and I am so excited to show you the results of the room reveal.

Let’s take a look back…..

Remember my extra wide hallway space that was a dumping group for all things kid related?

…and these before photos are showing off the space after I had my kids do a bit of a clean up.  so not the best use of this space.

As my kids are getting older and 3 of the 4 are in school – they are coming home with projects and homework … the kitchen table was an OK area to do the work but my 2 older children in particular were quite distracted by the goings on in the family room with their 2 younger brothers.  So that is what motivated me to create a homework station.  This challenge popped up at the perfect time as I really wanted to have this space all set up before back to school.

Let’s take a look at the progress….

I knew this space would be perfect – we don’t need a massive ‘office’ for the kids and I wanted them to still be close by that we could check in on them and they could ask for help. This little nook space is located between my kitchen and laundry room.

It started with a total removal of everything that was in the space and everything was re-homed to a better spot in the house (baseball bats don’t need to be stored by the kitchen)

I then asked around (starting with family) to see if anyone had anything ‘hanging’ around that they wanted to get rid of — I lucked out with a desk.

The desk fits beautifully in the space and it is metal so it is easy to clean (white may not be the ideal colour for kids but if it gets really dirty and cannot be cleaned….it should be easy enough to spray paint)

I purchased the plastic 4 drawer chest at staples (it was about 1/3 of my budget but it is such an important item).  It comes with wheels so it is easy to slide in and out as my kids need items from the drawers.  I designated (using labels) one drawer per child and the top drawer is for shared items like scissors, erasers, pencil sharpener….)

I soon realized that I had some additional wall space in that nook area and that could be used for back packs! The kids back packs end up in various locations of the house and we need a system….so wall mounted hooks were need. I found some great ‘Buddy Hooks’ on Wayfair and I could have opted for something more typical but I thought these were really fun (and my kids love them, too!) That’s $20 added to my budget – so 1/2 already spent!

I wanted the space to have some colour and also demonstrate that it was a kids’ space – we have tons of kids’ art all over the house and some just stored in bins.  So I spent some time with the kids going through some of their favourites…we found some colourful canvases, a papier mache mask my son had made plus a bunch of other items…..I wanted to be able to show off all of their work but there’s isn’t enough wall space for that – so I thought about adding these clipboards to the gallery wall and this way we could switch up their art and work throughout the year!

I like to plan out my gallery walls on the floor first instead of just ‘winging’ it!

These clipboards were about $5.00 each…

See the full details of this homework station transformation…

week 1

week 2

week 3

Time for the room reveal….

I’m so happy with how this turned out! My kids are really excited, too – my daughter jumped right it to use the space as soon as I announced that it was done!

Here are the buddy hooks – in the back pack area – one hook for each child and I added a photo frame with a school photo – so they knew whose hook was whose….

The final budget…

4 drawer chest from Staples                                     $32.95

Buddy hooks                                                                         $20.00

2 clip boards                                                                         $10.00

3 wood photo frames                                                    $4.50

desk                                                                                     came from my parents

chair with pillow                                                               was already in my home just in another room

art                                                                                        already had

kids’ school photos                                                           already had

pencils, crayons – holder                                                 already had

2 file holders                                                                      $9.99 each

wall mount copper baskets                                             $20.00 (on clearance)

Total:                                                                        $107.43

So I’m slightly over budget….but the extra $7.43 I can live with for a space this useful and that looks this great!

A few more photos of the room reveal….

This new homework station is going to be really useful for us and the challenge really helped me stay on track with time and budget….I’m really looking forward to the next challenge coming up in September.

Let me know what you think of this homework station,