I’m Converting the Dining Room to an Art Space for the Kids

Back in May 2021, I carved out a little arts and craft space for my kids in the corner of our kitchen. It was simple but super functional for two small children and served both LJ and Vi well as they developed their loves of creating.

Flash forward almost three years, and they have outgrown the small desk. They are both very creative and love working on various art projects, and despite my best efforts to keep things organized, the space was overflowing with coloring books, bins of paper, markers, crayons, paint supplies, stickers, play doh, stamps and ink pads, and much more. It got to the point where the “art desk” was just a dumping ground for all the supplies, but they actually needed to do the creating somewhere else because there was no space at the desk. (I’m cringing at this photo!!)

The dining room table is where things naturally gravitated. We really only use it for meals if we have company over (and even then, we’re often hosting in our basement) so the kids started using it as a space for their projects. The table had the advantage of space for both of them to work at once, as opposed to the single-person art desk, and before long the room was taken over with supplies and finished projects. I decided to embrace this season of life: we’re not using a dining room right now, so let’s just turn it into an art room for the kids! But if we were going to do this, I did not want to have another disheveled mess in the dining room, which is what was happening. Exhibit A: (cringing again!)

The biggest need was very clear: storage. Things really got out of hand with the art desk and were heading the same direction in the dining room; I wanted to keep better organization in the new space. I needed it to be very kid-friendly and preferably inexpensive, but also nice enough to fit in with the flow of the rest of the house since the dining room is open to the rest of the main floor. I found the perfect solution at Ikea with their Kallax system.

I love that Ikea sells the basic 8-cube shelf and allows you to customize it with extras and inserts. I chose to elevate the shelf on the black iron legs to make it a little easier to access for the kids. I also chose to use 4 drawer inserts, giving us 8 drawers to categorize and store supplies. The drawers seem small but they can hold a lot! I also chose a few divider inserts and used two horizontally to create additional shelves and two vertically to create slots for storing various activity books. It fits everything that was piled on and in the art desk but with a LOT more organization.

I also snagged this desk organizer at Ikea and a few little pencil cups to keep the most commonly used utensils handy on top. The kids can just take the cup they need over to the table to work. It’s been working great so far! I’ve had this cute lamp for several months now – I originally intended for it to be in the living room but I don’t currently have a place for it there out of toddler reach. I had the idea to try it here for now and I actually love it! It creates a nice warm glow when we just need a little light and not the full overhead lighting.

The only other thing I want to do with this room right now is address the large white wall. I want to add a bunch of frames to the wall to display finished artwork, and I am also debating adding a corkboard over the shelf for a place to dry painting projects. It’ll be a pretty simple but impactful transformation and it really makes our house feel more like us as it works to fit the needs of our family in this stage.