How to Set Up a Study Nook for a Schoolchild in a Rental for $150

Names and identifying details of every student here are changed, as they are everywhere on the blog.

Lena rents a one-bedroom and her son does his homework at the kitchen table, which is also the dinner table, which is also where the mail lives. By October she had the thing every mother gets, a note from the teacher about unfinished work, and a landlord who does not allow holes in the walls.

So we built him a corner. Not a room, a corner, and it came in under $150 with the lamp.

Choose the wall first

We picked her wall before anything got bought. The outlet had to be close enough that no cord would cross the floor. The door could not swing into the spot. And the chair could not end up facing the television, which took one of her two options off the list. A corner of the bedroom works. Living room works too, as long as the back of the chair is not facing the room, because a child with people walking behind him turns around every time somebody moves.

Her spot turned out to be the stretch of wall between the window and the closet, where a laundry basket had been living since the move.

Where the $150 goes

Prices move, and the chairs in particular go on sale constantly, so check the day you buy. Secondhand works for the desk and is a gamble with the chair, because the part that fails on a used chair is the height adjustment, which is the only part that matters here.

Light and height, the skipped parts

Start with light. A ceiling fixture behind a child’s head puts his own shadow on the page, which is why homework at the kitchen table feels harder than it is. A lamp on the desk, pointed at the paper from the side opposite his writing hand, fixes that, and the cheapest one at the hardware store does it as well as any. Height second, and the measurements for it live in the questions at the end of this article, because nobody remembers numbers out of a paragraph anyway. With Lena it came down to one thing. His feet hung, so he got a box.

Money goes to the chair and the lamp first. Everything else in a back-to-school aisle can wait.

Nothing on the walls, because it is a rental

A pin board stands on the desk, leaning. The calendar went up on adhesive strips, and the first one got stuck behind a door for a week before she trusted the rest, because mine once pulled paint off a door frame and left the hallway alone. What goes on the walls, and what the lease says about it, is at the end of this article.

And read what the lease says about holes before the drill comes out. That is a different conversation, and an expensive one.

Ten-minute reset

The basket sits on the floor by the desk leg. Everything that is not homework goes in it at bedtime, and the morning starts on a clear surface, which has nothing to do with being tidy. A desk with yesterday’s mess on it is a desk a child avoids.

My kitchen table in Rosario

I did homework at the kitchen table until I left home, and the thing that made it work was not furniture. My mother cleared that table at seven, every day, and for that hour nobody put anything on it. That was the whole system.

If the only surface in the apartment is the kitchen table, the hour is the nook. The $150 version just means nobody has to clear it.

Lena, in the end

Desk and chair from the store, lamp from the hardware place on the corner, basket from the dollar store, total $131 and change. The laundry basket moved into the closet, which she says was the hardest part. By November the note from the teacher had stopped. She credits the lamp. I credit the chair that goes up and down, which her son adjusts about nine times an evening, which is fine. That corner with a lamp in it is also where reading in the other language happens, if anybody sets that up. Palme School teaches children from four years old, online, in small groups, 40 minutes a lesson, and every family starts with two free sessions, a conversation with a methodologist and then a trial lesson in a group. A child who follows Russian and answers back in English belongs in Russian for bilingual children. When the speech is fine and the page is where everything stops, that is the reading school.

Frequently asked questions

What do I actually need to buy for a study nook?

A desk surface, a height-adjustable chair, a task lamp and a basket for everything that is not homework. At current store prices a small desk runs about $70 and a child’s desk chair about $30, which leaves room in a $150 budget for the lamp, a bulb and a power strip.

Where should the desk go in a small apartment?

Against a wall with an outlet within reach, out of the swing of a door, with the chair back not facing the middle of the room, and with the screen or page out of the line of sight of a television.

How do I set the height for a child?

Feet supported flat, knees roughly square, elbows roughly square at the desk surface, and the top of any screen at eye level. A box under the feet and a cushion on the seat cover most of the gap for a small child.

What can I do without drilling into the walls?

Prop a pin board on the desk rather than hanging it, use a cart on wheels, and test adhesive strips in a hidden spot first, since they lift some paint and leave other paint alone. Check the lease before making any holes.

How do we keep the desk usable day to day?

One basket for everything that is not homework, emptied onto the desk only when it is needed and filled again at bedtime, so the surface starts each day clear.

Is it worth buying the furniture secondhand?

A used desk is usually fine. A used chair is a risk, because the height adjustment is the part that wears out, and height adjustment is the main reason to buy a chair for a child.

Palme School: Russian for bilingual children · Reading school · Free materials for families

Monica Perez is from Rosario, Argentina. These days she does nails in Los Angeles, and her regulars are mostly Russian-speaking, which is how these stories reach her before they reach anybody else.