Homework Nook

I am so excited to share about our latest house project…the Homework Nook. It’s been about 2 months since we moved into our new house and this is the one space we didn’t have a clear vision for when we purchased the home.

The kitchen runs along one side of the house with a bar on both ends and spaces for dining tables after each bar. We already had a great spot for our big dining room table and didn’t really see the need for a second “breakfast nook” since the bars seemed to already serve that function.

In the end we decided to turn the space into a “homework nook” basically a space right off of the kitchen for the kids to come home drop their bags, grab a snack and zip through their homework.

Sometimes we can get a great idea for a space only to move furniture around and realize that space failed to become what you imagined at all. I was a little worried that might be the case here, but I am happy to say that’s not at all what happened! Right away the kids took to it and began using their desks for homework, crafty projects, and storing their special supplies.

You can see this space from multiple areas of the house and it gets passed by through out the day, so I definitely didn’t want it to be a big eye sore, or a cluttered mess. With a couple of key pieces, and being careful not to add TOO much I feel like I was able to make this space feel like an extension of our kitchen and play room, and fit the style of the rest of our home perfectly.

I think the item that helps tie everything together and make it feel like it’s own room is the circle rug I got from Rugs USA.  I was so excited to partner with them and cannot say enough great things about my experience working together.  They have a great feature where you can upload a photo of the room that you are wanting a rug for and see what it would look like! I had so much fun with that, and it really did help me in choosing the best one.  I had a few neutral options picked out, but in the end I had to go with this one because the colors were just TOO perfect! 

For the desks I got matching Micke Desks from Ikea and I love the simple design and the fact that the same type of desk comes in a few different sizes. One was gifted to me from a friend so I just needed to get a second one to match.  I had a happy accident when I mistakenly bought the smaller desk, and it ended up making room for the fun teal cart to go next to it.

I knew I wanted to add one of our bookslings somewhere in this space. As fate would have it there ended up being a spot EXCATLY the length of our small book sling. I love that I can put a mix of cook books as well as the kids books in an accessible spot for all of us.

I wanted something for the wall  and found this artwork at Hobby Lobby that coordinates SO nicely with the rug without being too matchy matchy. 

The rest of the items are mostly vintage, or craft show/antiquing finds. The lamps in particular are special to me, the one on my sons desk is one that was my Papa’s refurbished for me by my dad, and the one on my daughters desk  was my grandmothers.

Sources:

• Rug : Rugs USA,  It comes in multiple shapes and sizes but which you can find here. We ordered the 6 foot circle.
• Desks : Ikea Micke Desk one with the side cabinet and one without.
• Utility Cart : Ikea, although I do not think they still carry this color. I have seen these a few other places as well in other colors, Target, World Market, etc.
• Book Sling : Blue House Joys
• Art Work : Hobby Lobby
• Chairs : resale vintage finds
• Lamps : vintage grandparents lamps restored by my dad. Here’s something similar. 
• Phone : childhood garage sale find 🙂 But you can find one here.

What do you think? Would you ever turn an underused common space into a homework nook in your own home?