If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen me mention my love for this dining table at World Market that would make a killer desk..

There are so many things I loved about it. The iron legs, real-wood plank table top, the depth and, of course, the fact it was marked down from $329 to $260. It was THE desk I’ve been looking for. About ten minutes after this photo was posted, I asked them to hold one for me so Greg could go by later and pick it up in the SUV (there was only 1 in stock!). A few hours later, the old desk was listed on Craigslist (we ended up selling for $225 – which just about paid for the new one!) and the new desk was in place…

I love it. Every time I walk by my office, I have a need to say “hi”. I love working at it too. It makes me feel more creative, haha. My monitor is 30″ and the lamp is a pretty big lamp, so the desk may look a little smaller than it actually is. The monstrosity that is my computer tower is on it’s way out the window. I just pulled the trigger on a new MacBook Pro last night, so bye bye tower and messy wires! In other words, ignore the ugly thing on the other side of the desk and the nest of wires surrounding it. I’m keeping the monitor to be able to convert the laptop to a desktop workstation when ever I feel like working on a big screen, though. So, that’s staying put.

I love the vast amount of workspace – so much more than my last desk! I added the lamp (which may or may not be switched out for another one down the road), a little potted faux plant (from Ikea), a blue tray (from Target) and essentials like pens, Sharpies and paper tape.

Before you start judging that I have a poster on the wall held up with tacks, let me explain! The poster was originally hung in my college dorm room and I’ve been saving it for years to hang somewhere in my house. Not only does it bring back ridiculously fun memories, but it’s only the best movie ever with three of my all-time favorite people (Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, and William Holden). If you haven’t seen it, stop what you’re doing and look it up on Netflix. I’m planning on getting it framed, but until I decide on a particular frame/mat, I wanted to hang it to get a feel for what it would look like on the wall. The poster itself has extra-wide borders, and the tacks are in the corners, way away from the artwork, so we’re all good. I really love the colors, and I think it really pops against the wall color. It will also tie in with the rest of the room once it’s all put together. As for the rest of the room…

What’s funny is the fact that I’ve never had a definite plan for this room – which is SO unlike me. So far, I’ve just been collecting what I like/need (like THE desk and the Martha Stewart storage furniture) and crossing my fingers I can bring it all together. So that’s where I am now: bringing it all together.

My thoughts are if I change out the white wooden hardware on the storage pieces for some weathered oil-rubbed bronze hardware, that will tie them in with the legs of the desk. My next plan of action is to add some panel curtains to the window. As for some color, I bought some “fabric” that I love. Fabric is in “quotes” because it’s actually a shower curtain – but it doesn’t look like a shower curtain – promise! I’m not losing my mind.

Do you hear that? That’s my family all over the country laughing hysterically because they know I have no business using a sewing machine. It ties in nicely with the cabinets, coral chairs, Sabrina poster and the Ikat pattern is a tad rustic(ish). I bought three to give me enough “fabric” to go from floor to ceiling. I’ve actually had them for a few months, but I’ve been nervous about doing anything with them, afraid I’ll mess them up. Here’s hoping that since I’ve posted about it now, I’ll suck it up and actually get around to doing it.

 Since my new desk doesn’t have drawers, I’m in dire need of a Shop Assistant. Expedit translated means “shop assistant”. I learned that from Benita Larsson, organizing extraordinaire, herself. Functionally, an Expedit would work wonders for me. Design-wise, I can’t decide. I keep going back and forth. I like the idea of rustic meets modern meets a little bit of old school but this one has me completely stumped. If we do decide on the Expedit, here’s how the layout of the room would go…

And to give you a reference, here’s what the room looks like right now…

The addition would add some height to the room, and I’d have a place to store all of my papers and office supplies, and I could use it to display things like my antique camera collection. So, what do you guys think? Yay or Nay on the Expidit? Should I be planning another trip to Ikea or shopping around for something else?

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? ; )

As promised, I’m here with the full low down, the ins and outs, the whole kit and caboodle of the Martha Stewart storage furniture in my office.

We purchased these pieces a while back and I’ve spent the last two weeks (off and on) finally unpacking my last few boxes of office stuff and organizing every nook an cranny of my new storage furniture. I’m not an avid crafter or scrapbooker – so I don’t have piles of glue, stickers, and other crafty gadgets – which is probably what this furniture was intended for. Instead, I have things like greetings cards, paper, envelopes, a Sharpie collection, 3-ring binders, art prints, magazines, files, and a few “crafty things” here and there.

First up, we have this big guy – which consists of  two separate pieces (the Eight-Drawer Flat-File Cabinet and the Storage Hutch).

On the inside of the left door is a bulletin board. I’m planning on making a large inspiration board to go near my desk for graphic design and home decorating projects. That being the case, this hidden one is mainly for stuff on my wish list (like those awesome glasses at the top) and old family photos I like having around. On the opposite door, there’s a chalkboard. I really like the concept of having both, but for some reason, I can’t seem to get chalk to actually write on the board. It’s almost like the “chalkboard” is made from something smoother than chalkboard material. I looked over some product reviews, and it seems some people have had the same problem. No worries, though! We’ve got wet erase chalk markers! I’ve actually really enjoyed using them as a substitute for the usual dusty chalk.

Let’s start on the left side of the hutch… At the very top, I’ve got one of my favorite belongings – an antique camera my Uncle Jerry gave me when I was 17. I think it’s nice to have a few sentimental things mixed in with practical useful items. It makes whatever you’re doing easier on the eyes and more fun! Next to the camera is a small white and coral bowl that holds glue sticks and a hot glue gun. The next shelf down is my craft paint stash. The paint brush cup was a plain red pencil cup that I bought from Pottery Barn about four years ago. I painted it coral to go with the coral/blue/gray/white motif I’m working toward. On the bottom shelf are my three go-to binders for (almost) everything that goes on around the house, along with my utensil caddy turned Sharpie/pencil caddy (more on that here).

On the bottom, there are two sliding drawers. They’re nice to have so that I can corral all of my random odds and ends. The drawers slide all the way out, too, just in case I want to take the entire bin to another room for some reason. To make them even more functional, I added brackets (more on that here) to label what each one is holding. I love these because I can change the labels as my needs change. Right now, I’m using one for magazines I need to go through and the other for things I may want to frame or put on the big inspiration board when that goes up down the road.

Now, for the left side…

On the top shelf is a box where I keep all of our important receipts. When the box gets full, I just file them away. Easy peasy! I reused yet another pencil holder from Pottery Barn to hold my washi tape collection. I love using clear containers for stuff like this because it’s colorful and fun to look at. Next is a small collection of my favorite home design books, held up by my crazy easy DIY bookend. Then, I’ve got a box that holds all of my phone/camera/battery chargers, a shiny stapler and tape dispenser set and another favorite antique camera.

The next thing down is my favorite feature of this furniture: the flat-file drawers. I love, love, love these crazy deep drawers – 25 inches deep to be exact. Thanks to the dividers that came with the unit, there seems to be a place for everything.

In an effort to help keep things tidy and organized, I labeled each drawer with using my label maker. I can’t resist a labeling opportunity!

The depth comes in handy when storing our art prints and mailing supplies for the Etsy store. I love when it comes time to ship a print out and all I have to do is open the drawer labeled “Mailing Supplies” and there’s everything I need to put it together.

Now we have the smaller of the two storage pieces, the Craft Space Storage Cabinet. It’s not as deep as the other cabinet, but it still packs a big punch in the storage capacity department. With the exception of the bottom drawer, this is where I keep all of my paper goods and paper-related items — greeting cards, notepads, the printer, cardstock, envelopes, and so on.

I added more bracket labels to keep things organized in this piece, as well. The bins on the door are where I keep all of our greeting cards. If I ever have more than what fits in those bins, I have too many. Also adorned with bracket labels are the sliding trays inside. I have one tray for cardstock, one for envelopes, and one for “pretty paper scraps”. They are so convenient and they pull all the way out so I can take them wherever I’m working in the house. The large cubby is perfect for the printer. When I realized it fit, it was like a magic Disney moment! Now that we know this will be the permanent home of the printer, Greg is going to drill a small hole in the back of the cabinet for the wires. Under the printer are two baskets: one for printer ink and the other houses my totally normal collection of notepads and small notebooks. Actually, the collection used to be much larger. When I was in high-organization-mode last week, I pared down the collection to only what fits in the basket – with a little room for one or two new ones. Like with the greeting cards, if I have more than what fits in the basket, it’s too many and time to purge again. I have to have these rules for myself or you’d be seeing me on Hoarders next season. 

Lastly, under the cabinet are two drawers. In the top drawer, I keep larger paper products like contact paper, poster board (along with poster markers) and small blank canvases.

The bottom drawer isn’t 100% organized yet. It’s where I keep my little stamp collection as well as extra office supplies. I want to wait until it fills up a little more before I get the containers and dividers it needs.

Well, that about wraps up the current state of my office organization. It’s a work in progress, but truth be told, I’m loving every minute of it. Are you an organizing junkie too? Can I come organize your house when I’m finished with ours? ; )