$100 Room Challenge Breakfast Nook Reveal

Reveal day is my favorite part of the $100 Room Challenge! I love to see a project come together, and it's even better when you get to see all your friends' projects come together! This month I gave my breakfast nook a little makeover, and I'm amazed at the difference a few little details can make. One month and $100 doesn't seem like much to go on, but it gets the job done!

Before we get to the big reveal, let's take a quick look back. If you're just joining us, check out my previous posts about this challenge:

Week 1 ~ Week 2 ~ Week 3

Then take a look at Erin's  vision for this challenge. She blogs over at Lemons, Lavender, and Laundry and is the creator of this whole experience. She was even featured on The Rachael Ray show!

As a quick reminder, here is what I started with:

Not too bad, but needs some fine tuning.

And this is our breakfast nook now:

I couldn't be happier with the changes. For once, I didn't move any furniture or repaint any walls. (We'd already done that previously.) I loved my farmhouse table and storage benches, but they just needed a little updating with fresh colors.

I gave the table a makeover using stain and chalk paint, to make it a little lighter looking, and not quite so much like the black hole of the room. (You can see exactly how I did it in my

These benches were great for seating lots of people, as well as storing my recipe books, the kids' craft supplies, and our seasonal table linens. But they just didn't look very pretty. The new colorful and comfortable cushions brought up the style factor, and gave them a more built-in feel. Adding storage baskets to corral everything in the cubbies cleaned them up and made them look more intentional and less like the catch-all they had become. (More on that transformation in this

Finally this week I added to my chalkboard to create a family command center.

This chalkboard has become the focal point of our kitchen and breakfast area. My youngest loves to "redesign" it with new sayings and drawings every once in a while, and I love it when she leaves me notes, like this little gem that I shared on instagram. It's also great for jotting down a quick to-do list for the kids. (If you're wondering where I got such a fabulous huge chalkboard, I'm spilling my secret here!)

But we still needed a little better system for organizing all the school papers, notes, sign-up forms, and general detritus that kept accumulating on my kitchen counter. (I work best with piles and organized chaos, but that doesn't mean I want it to be the first thing I see when I walk in!)

On one side of the chalkboard I hung these wire basket files. I'd had my eye on similar farmhouse style baskets for a while, but couldn't justify the cost. Finally I found these on clearance for $7, but they were a vibrant hot pink color. A quick coat of black spray paint from my stash took care of that, and brought them in line with the style of this room. One little note: I added fun patterned folders on the inside of the baskets, so you would see that, rather than all the random stuff on the papers that go in them. Small detail, big impact.

And this little clipboard is the perfect size for the space on the other side of the chalkboard. I found this one also on clearance for $2. Yes, $2! It said something like "Happy Graduation 2016" on it, so I covered that up with some black chalkboard paint that I had leftover from my chalkboard project, and now it's perfectly plain and goes with everything. (Did I mention $2?) I use it to clip little notes and Bible verses that I'm working on. Plus, the clips provide the perfect ledge for storing a piece of chalk.

Now I have a clipboard for the small pieces of paper, folders for the larger ones, and a chalkboard to keep a weekly schedule and any other notes to each other. Hopefully this will help keep the whole family more organized, and I can go back to using my kitchen counter tops for more fun activities like making cookies.

Finally, I just wanted to add a couple of farmhouse accessories on the table, and clean up my shelf that holds my decorative glass collection. I love how the blues and greens in the seat cushions, mason jars on the table, and insulators on the shelf pull the space together.

And there you have it, my updated classic farmhouse breakfast nook!

Here's how my expenses added up:

• Stain - 8
• Sanding Pads - 3
• Chalk Paint - 9
• Polycrylic - 9
• Fabric - 17
• Hanging Basket - 7
• Folders - 5
• Clipboard - 2
• For a grand total of... $60

I love coming in under budget! But, to be fair, most of the expensive work in here (such as taking down a wall, painting, bringing in furniture, hanging a shelf and chalkboard) had already been done. That's OK, I'm still counting it as under budget for this challenge!

P.S. Next week, I'll be back with an update on our Flip House. You won't believe how far It's come!