Work In Progress: Kids' Work Space

Over Spring Break last week we drove up to Denver to visit the Children's Museum with some of our friends. We got there about thirty minutes after they opened and I had the intention of heading home a little after lunchtime but we were all enjoying it so much that we closed the place down. There was a Kinetics room where kids could play with compressed air and plastic balls, a bubble room, an animal clinic where you could play the vet (Ruby's favorite), an organic grocery store, a painting station, a paper airplane and rocket section, and a building room.

It was full of miniature tools and plenty of repurposed recycleables for building their own creations or following laminated picture tutorials. Ruby and I built a butterfly from a tongue depressor and pipe cleaners, Tim helped Sebastian make a caterpillar from brads and an egg carton, and I saw a few cars made out of toilet paper tubes with plastic lids for wheels. I would've never thought my kids would be ready to use a hand saw but apparently once they got started they were quite capable (under supervision of course). 

I told my friend, Mindy, half-jokingly that I needed to clean out our garage so I could build a similar work station for the kids. Then I decided I really would. 

It's still a work in progress but I think most of the hard work has been done. I spent six hours last Friday clearing out and reorganizing the garage and then a few more hours on Saturday purchasing supplies from the hardware store and figuring out how to set up their workspace as well as mine. 

I took down some pre-existing pegboard that needed to be rearranged and repainted and it white. I had some MDF cut at Lowe's to fit snugly in the back of our Volvo and it fit nicely under the existing board on the kids' side. I painted it with a coat of chalkboard paint but ran out of time to get a second coat on before finishing for the day. I did manage to get it screwed into the existing drywall. It's tall enough for both kids to enjoy drawing on it. I may even borrow it from time-to-time. 

I'd searched for a little table to utilize but ended up repurposing the mud table I built for the kids last fall. It's the perfect height and has some space for storage below. We'd had a chalkboard tablet from the last house that I hadn't been able to find a place for so I will give it another coat of chalkboard paint and screw it to the mud table. The white pegboard will go above it but needs to be framed out first. The tiered wire baskets were a thrifted find I was thinking to use in our kitchen but decided it'd be perfect for holding recycled items for the kids to reuse.

I'll probably add a few baskets and a shelf and some hooks for hanging their own tools-everything sized appropriately as I find it. I'm hoping to not spend much money on this space but I think it'll be quite valuable to them as a place to explore and create where they have don't have to pretend their toys are real. I promise to be back with a full reveal for both sides when they're set up.

I love making the most out of the space available to us in our home. Although my DIY clothing rack is now holding most of Brett's Army gear you can see how I envisioned using one side of our basement as my own personal closet. I turned a large wardrobe into a closet office here and have yet to officially post how we've set up the front porch as a little retreat from the rest of the house. 

Do you have any big house projects you're in the middle of right now or that you can't wait to start?

-Rachel