This has been one of those projects that feels so so good to share about! Every time I passed the staff room at my kid’s school I would shutter- haha. I honestly don’t think I’m being dramatic. There was old, furniture some with scraped paint or broken parts. The room felt full without being functional or cozy. It was like a junk drawer had exploded in the entire room; becoming a catch all for leftover school items. I felt sad that the teachers would spend their breaks and planning time in this room that had no natural light and a very chaotic set up. I decided that it would be such a great opportunity for families of our school community to get involved and gift our teachers and staff with a new and improved room over the holidays!

Families rallied together and gave money to put towards the room flip as part of their Christmas gift for teachers and the PAC committee contributed the rest.

The design details were a total secret and during the holidays we set out to bring the room to life with new furniture, accessories and a splash of paint!

There were a few rules we had to follow and incorporate into the design. The bulletin board items have to be displayed on the boards, the dehydrator needs to be in a functional spot as it gets used all the time for the snack shack and the cupboards had to stay in the “blue family”.

I got to work coming up with a design, measuring everything out and sketching out a plan and floor plan. Everything had to be measured and accounted for!

A few of us met on the last day of school before the holidays and built the new furniture in the school library. On the same day we emptied out the existing furniture in the staff room.

The next day, Brittany (another mom and now, new friend!) met me at the school and began prepping the cabinets and painting. I also took a chip of the wall to get matched and painted the walls for a little touch up! It’s incredible what paint can do!

The bulletin boards had to get taken off the wall and wrapped with the new paper. I was able to condense the boards and get rid of one of the three boards while keeping everything on display. This frees up some wall space and personally I feel like it’s less overwhelming with just two boards.

The bench seating also holds some of those extra items that don’t get used every day like crock pots and other appliances. We swapped the old stove for a white, newer one that was being used in the school gym.

Britt painted the open shelves in the same paint as the upper cabinets. It was a nice way to continue the colour scheme on the other side of the room while also showcasing the coffee and drink station. The upper cabinets are in Mystic Lake by Benjamin Moore and the lower cabinets are painted in Caribbean Teal. All cabinets were updated with new black hardware.

It took us 6 visits into the school to complete! The only thing that didn’t arrive in time was the hardware for the cabinets. We will install in a few days once it gets here.

Take a look at the before pictures and a reminder at how far this room has come!

Here are the after photos!

Here’s a little virtual look…

With special thanks to Brittany Winje who dedicated a lot of her time over the holidays to assist Nick and I with the transformation. Couldn’t have come together without her help!

Special thanks to Teryn and Alex Chee and Sam and Eli Geddis for letting us in and out of the building to do our magic!

Thank you to Lori Wassenaar, Brittany Winje, Jenna Hall, Joel DeVito and Nick Adams for building furniture!

Thank you to Robin Rowley Fournier for providing staff room treats for the reveal.

Thank you to all school families that participated in this gift and made this a reality!!!

Speaking of reveal… here are are some of our wonderful teachers and staff seeing their staff room for the first time after the holidays!

Thank you teachers and incredible staff for always going above and beyond for our kids!

We hope this room becomes a place of rest and comfort for you. We are so appreciative of all of you!

Before you go- here are the side by side before and afters!