My Kid’s Craft space

My kids are very lucky. They have their own craft space that  I sometimes wish I could take over as mine.

It all started when Little Miss wanted a desk in her bedroom. She wanted to be able to draw and write in there, but I wasn’t keen to have felt pens on the cream carpet that is standard through our house. So I started looking at setting up a desk in our living area.

We have a long kitchen bench that runs across the room. The side that is not in the kitchen was probably designed to house a row of kitchen stools, but in reality it was just housing piles of stuff on the floor. I decided it would be cool to have a desk for the kids there so that as they got older I could supervise homework and reading while cooking and washing up. Let’s face it: I’m a mum and I must multitask!

After looking around I discovered that Ikea makes table tops and legs that you can mix-and-match to create whatever you are after. I chose their longest table top and matched it with three “legs”. The legs are actually A-shaped shelves so the kids can store their bits and pieces. (I wanted to give you a link to these too but I can’t find them on their website.) I got three of these trestles so that one could go in the middle to support the length of the table and stop it from bowing. I also picked up some nice steady chairs that the kids wouldn’t easily tip over. The cushions are removable and washable – always good for kids!

Table Top Tip: The table top will slide if leaned on, so I used some velcro on the top of the end trestles and the underside of the table top to stop the shifting. I used the velcro with the sticky backing so it was an easy case of peel and stick.

Next we visited another favourite store, Officeworks, for supplies. We have a plastic tray for each of the kids to store paper in and a matching desk organiser each. Then we have an extra tray to hold all the pencil cups and the sticky tape and so on.

Under the desk we recently added some plastic drawers from Bunnings to store more paper (does it reproduce itself!?), felt pens and other stationery.

Overall, it works really well. Little Miss does her homework there each week and Mr Happy is just starting to want to draw and write, too. It is easy to clean and big enough for both of the kids to use at once. The chairs come in handy when we need extras at the dining table, and the table is in the perfect position to serve as a buffet during birthday parties.

Here’s a couple more pictures…