When I first started designing this mood board for the blog, I didn’t have a specific room in mind, only that it would be a home office of some sort. Then, when I showed this board to Greg, he did a back flip followed by a cart wheel. No. Not really. But he might as well have. I was super shocked when he said, “Yeah, I really like that. Actually, I think I’d like something like that for my office.” Really?! I was beyond shocked because Greg rarely voices his opinion when it comes to things interior design, and until that moment I always thought he wanted his office to be a pure modern, geeky, tech domain. Apparently he changed his mind. He said he’s not too crazy about the rug, but that being one of my favorite pieces in the room, I’m going to try to convince him it will grow on him! ; )

Regardless of what we end up with in Greg’s office, this mood board tries to capture a warm, modern with a touch of “old school industrial” feel…

1. Finishes - With this room, I have a lot of mixed thoughts when it comes to wall color. The safe bet would be Farrow & Ball’s Cornforth White with white trim. For a super modern look, white walls and white trim would do the trick. For an even more modern look, white walls and dark trim. Sounds a little odd, yeah, but I’ve seen this done in a bunch of decor magazines lately and has a really cool effect in just the right space. To give the room even more warmth, it’d be nice to add natural elements where possible – like a small potted plant (which would also add some more color) and reclaimed wood shelving.
2. Wesco Cord Hung Pendant Light - For the first touch of old school, we have this great red barn pendant light. It’s industrial and brings in some fun personality and a pop of color. Barn Light Electric even gives you the option to add a wire cage on it… yes please!
3. Large Deer Trophy - I’ve had a crush on this cardboard deer for what seems like forever. It’s fun with an obvious hint of rustic, plus you get the joy of putting this bad boy together!
4. Alston Curtain Panel - I’ve always been drawn to horizontal lines – especially when it comes to curtains. They are a great way to make tiny rooms appear larger – like Greg’s office! These (along with #10) bring in a graphic element that gives the room that modern feel.
5. Work Space - Every home office needs a desk and a comfy chair. To keep things simple, I really love the clean lines of this Parsons Desk. The medium wood tones bring some warmth and contrast nicely against the white desk chair. To add a bit of a natural element, I’d add one or two faux potted plants from Ikea (I love these things!).
6. Retro Dial Clock - This wall clock is the perfect fit for this room because it’s a tad old school and the red hands subtly tie in with the pendant light. The modern numbers also make it a bit masculine.
7. Strandmon Chair - I. Love. This. Chair. It made its debut in the new Ikea catalog, but it won’t be available in stores until this winter. I’m anxiously awaiting that day because if it doesn’t go in Greg’s office (which it probably will), it’s going in the living room. It’s modern with a Dick Van Dyke feel to it. It’s awesome!
8. Lighting Enterprises Floor Lamp - Yet another touch of old school. I think it’s a perfect pair with the Strandmon chair above!
9. Kvarnvik Storage Boxes - These storage boxes will be great for storing unsightly extra wires, parts and pieces. I love how they are covered with dark charcoal blue fabric and finished off with metal bracket labels – yet another one of my new Ikea favorites!
10. Abdalusia Dhurrie - Oh, this rug! This rug had me at hello. I first remember noticing it when Genevieve Gorder used it on her HGTV show. Ever since, I’ve been dying to find a way to use it somewhere in the house.

So, what do you think? Have any favorite pieces?

Making an inspiration board for my office has been on my DIY To-Do List for a while now. I talked about my childhood love of inspiration boards (and Jonathan Taylor Thomas) in this post a while back – almost a year ago! I love the idea of having a designated place where you have permission to clutter it up with things you love and gain creative inspiration from. An inspiration board can be a pretty powerful thing to get the creative juices flowing and over time, it basically turns into a piece of art that completely captures all of your creative senses.

I bought this super cool frame at a local thrift store (Love of Jesus for you locals) for eight bucks. Coming in at around 36×29, it’s a pretty good size – perfect for an inspiration board, right?! The slightly weathered gold details had me at hello and I couldn’t bear to even think about painting it. So gold it stayed!

The frame didn’t come with any backing, so we cut down the backing that came with the frame we used for our magnetic chalkboard project (good thing we kept that around in our scrap pile out in the shed). Obviously, you can’t have a cork board without cork. I bought a package of cork tiles, connected them using duct tape (as suggested here by Sherry over at Young House Love) and cut them to the size of the backing board. At this point, the plan was to cover it with fabric, pop it in the frame and be done with it. But then I remembered seeing Genevieve Gorder’s studio on HGTV. She covered a whole wall with Homasote (which is really cork-like) and painted it with chalkboard paint. Genius! So back to Staples I went and picked up a roll of cork. I cut a piece to size and attached it to the duct-taped cork tiles using spray adhesive (Scotch Super 77). Having two layers of cork, plus a frame backing may seem like we went a little overboard, but it ended up being a good thing. Neither the tiles nor the roll of cork alone were thick enough to securely hold a push pin, and the backing makes the finished product all sturdy and awesome.

Luckily, we had a lot of chalkboard paint left over from, the magnetic chalkboard project. I painted the cork using a mini roller (which is the cutest little thing ever!). The paint had awesome coverage and looked great after two coats, but I did three just for good measure.

Like my classy painting contraption? I used four cans of tomato soup to help hold the cork up so I didn’t get any paint on the counter. As you can see from the paint-covered can, I can get a tad clumsy when it comes to paint.

Once the paint was completely dry, I plopped that sucker into the frame. To keep it in place, Greg applied some caulk adhesive to the seams and let it sit overnight.

To make sure the edges didn’t pop up over night, I weighted the board down with something heavy on each corner. The next morning, the caulk was still a little wet, so we let it sit until later that night. It seemed like the longest day ever because I was dying to get it up on the wall and put it to work.

The frame didn’t have any type of hanger on it, so we had to add some. First, Greg drilled two small pilot holes in the frame so the screw wouldn’t split the wood. He also filled the hole Liquid Nail for extra security. He’s definitely a “better safe than sorry” kind of guy when it comes to hanging things on the wall! All that was left was to screw on the D-ring hangers, put two Gorilla Hooks in the wall, and hang the whole thing up!

And now, finally, the finished product…

Looks pretty nifty, right?! I haven’t had a chance to fill it up but I’m loving how the black cork makes the gold frame really pop. I also love the fact that I can write on the board itself.

Aside from the new inspiration board, my favorite thing in this corner is the ceramic dog (from HomeGoods). We like to call him Milo! When I first saw him in the store, I thought I would spray paint him a fun color. Now, seeing him in his new habitat, I’m second guessing myself. At this point, I think I’m going to wait until the rest of the office is finished before making any changes.

I picked up the small robins egg blue dish from a local thrift store for $3, which is perfect for holding extra push pins. To finish things off, I snagged the cup of paint brushes from the cabinet and a stack of House Beautiful magazines from the living room. This grouping may change later down the road, but I’m digging the look for now.

On top of the stack of magazines is a candle (from Terrain) I bought for my office a while back. I’m not planning on burning it until my office is “done”, though. I guess you could say it’s going to be my “reward”. I love the design on the jar, and my great grandmother loved persimmons, so in a way, it reminds me of her. I’m looking forward to enjoying the relaxing scent of Japanese persimmon, peach, and red currants. Yum!

I’m so excited to finally have a place to corral inspiration for house, blog and graphic design projects. It’s also super nice to finally have something hung on the walls in here! It’s about time, don’t you think? ; )

You guys remember me talking about our “lovely” patio furniture in this post, right?…

…Well, it’s about to get a serious facelift! We’ve had this set since we lived in our apartment. Down the road, we’d like to get a new set of outdoor furniture (maybe something like this), but until then, we decided to spruce up what we have. The set has held up really, really well and is still like brand new! On the other hand, the orangey-beige wasn’t working for us and definitely not getting along with our bricks. So, it needed a facelift. Badly!

For this transformation, we turned to our favorite tool and the easiest and fastest way to transform virtually anything… spray paint! The patio furniture is made out of plastic-ish resin that looks and feels a ton like wicker. We wanted to make sure the paint would adhere to the wanna-be-wicker surface, so we chose Rust-Oleum’s Ultra Cover Primer to get things started. The can says it covers plastic and wicker, so we were in good shape. As for the top coat/color, we went with Rust-Oleum’s Painter’s Touch in Satin Espresso. Both the primer and the paint cans say one can equals two. Knowing that we have a lot of “wicker” to spray paint, we had hopes of this feature helping us out in the long run.

First, we removed dust, dirt and any various “outdoor residue” from the furniture by spraying it down with the water hose and dried them off with a “project towel”. Once everything was dry, it was time for primer! The primer went on really well and took a lot less time than we expected (yay for time savers!). Almost two cans later, the furniture was all primed! We let it dry for about an hour and moved on to the Espresso.

Now, this step seemed like it took foooooorever. The wicker-esque furniture has a bajillion tiny grooves and crevices that can be seen from pretty much any angle. Just when you think you have a piece finished, you look at it from another angle and you see a sea of the original orangey-beige. Now and then, we had to just step away from it for a few minutes to get a different perspective – and to give our hands a rest. When it was all said and done, we emptied 5 cans of spray paint. Good thing this paint has double coverage, right?

About an hour after the last coat, the furniture was dry enough to handle – but still not quite dry enough to sit on. I couldn’t resist bringing all the pieces over their new resting place in the carport. We played around with a few arrangements but kept on coming back to having the love seat centered on the fireplace wall facing the two chairs and side table with the coffee table in the middle. Truth be told, I’ll probably switch it up about a hundred times before we’re ready to style and prettify everything. Ahh, I can’t wait to get some color in here!!!

Did you notice the new outdoor rug? We picked up this 8′x11′ bad boy at Target (this one). I really like how it’s neutral enough to go with pretty much any style and blends in nicely with the concrete floors (which we’re plaining on refinishing a little later down the road) without being too “bam! in your face”. Though the color is great, the selling point (for me) was the herringbone detail on the edges making the rug a perfect marriage of modern and neutral. The rug immediately helped break up the sea of concrete and defined a designated seating area. It still has some waves in it here and there from being rolled up in the store for so long, but those will fall out within time.

Oh, while we’re talking about the great outdoors, we upgraded our water hose with this fancy shamcy one from Home Goods (for only $12!) and also installed a new hose holder from Lowe’s (this one). Now we just need to do something this that big ugly box known as the air conditioner. Yeah, I can’t live without it, but it sure is ugly to look at. It’s a pretty old unit, yet still works really well, but when it dies and goes to Air Conditioner Heaven, we’re going to install the new one on the side of the house where it can’t be seen from the patio.

So, Phase 2 of the patio makeover is now complete! We’re one step closer to enjoying the upcoming Virginia fall weather out in the new carport turned patio. On to Phase 3! …not completely sure what’s next up on our list, but excited to get started nonetheless.