Transforming a little-used formal dining room into a bright, practical playroom for my friend reinforced my belief that homes should be designed to serve the people who live in them. A room once used only a few times a year is now a joyful, everyday space for the whole family.
I’m so excited to share this project—turning a rarely used formal dining room into a kid-friendly, practical playroom. When I help friends rework their spaces, I want them to be beautiful and functional, and this makeover hit both marks.
My neighbor—really a close friend named Emily—had long wanted to convert her formal dining room into a dedicated playroom. Their house had both a formal living and dining room at the front that were rarely used, while toys had invaded a small nook off the family room. The result was clutter and chaos. We decided to rearrange the flow of the front rooms so the space would better serve the family’s daily needs.
The swap involved some planning: move dining functions to the formal living area, and transform the old dining room into a roomy, organized play space. The result freed up square footage that had been wasted and created a welcoming area where toys stay contained.
Before the project, the play nook was too small, and toys spilled into the family room. Don’t judge Emily’s housekeeping—these pictures were taken while she was sorting and moving things. She actually took the opportunity to purge and donate a large bag of toys and books to Goodwill just in time for the holidays.
The space we converted is much larger and now functions perfectly as a playroom. Let’s take a look at the reveal.
Ta-da! The goal was to keep the home’s overall aesthetic while making the playroom fun and kid-friendly, since the room is visible from the front door. Emily’s brilliant solution was to install large sliding barn doors that can be closed when she wants the playroom out of sight—an elegant and practical idea.
For paint, we chose Clark+Kensington’s Baby Elephant, a calming gray that complements the home’s existing warm tones. To add warmth and a playful touch, Emily painted two horizontal stripes in Clark+Kensington Mocha Icing. The gray-and-beige pairing ties in beautifully with the browns and reds elsewhere in the house without feeling childish.
We used a framed print as inspiration for the room’s color palette and decor, since it mixed grays, browns, blues, and reds in a way that felt cohesive and lively.
For storage, we incorporated locker-style baskets and galvanized pails for corralling toys—simple, durable solutions that look cute and keep everything accessible. We added labels to the baskets during edits to make toy organization even easier.
Emily upcycled scrap wood from the barn doors and mod podged photos of her kids onto boards to create personalized wall art. It’s a meaningful, homey detail that makes the room feel loved and lived-in.
A common plastic train table was transformed with Krylon Chalkboard paint, turning the play surface into a chalk-friendly table where kids can draw and play—a simple update that adds a lot of play value.
We built the barn doors ourselves, working in short chunks between preschool drop-offs. It was a true two-mom project: hauling tools, cutting boards, and installing hardware together. The process was equal parts chaotic and joyful, and the finished doors were worth every moment. We used casters on the bottom for smooth operation, and hardware from our local hardware store.
A few days after the project finished, Emily texted to say it was literally changing their lives—having all the toys contained in one room made daily routines easier and the rest of the house more peaceful. That’s the kind of transformation I love helping create.
Is there a room in your home that could be repurposed to better suit your family’s needs? For me, I’m planning to convert a guest bedroom into a dedicated office that will still function as a guest room when needed—I hope to make that transition in 2014!