Studio: cork board

In the past, the desk area of my office had some metal file folders, which really weren't working. So instead I put up a large piece of cork (28"x90") and got some desktop file holders. In the back of my mind I thought I was going to mess up the cork with contact cement, so the cork was sitting in my office for a long time, but it's finally done!



The how to: I bought two large rolls of cork, placed them flat on a plastic sheet. Rolled on contact cement with a foam roller and sandwitched them together. Used a rubber roller and pressed down hard to make sure it adhered. Cut the cork to the exact wall space using a box cutter. Then using carpet adhesive, spread on a thin amount on the wall and some onto the cork. Lastly used the rubber roller again and my hands to make sure it stuck to the wall.



Enjoying all the empty space before it's filled with notes and inspiration, so I made a pushpin, yarn sculpture!

Office tour on Apartment Therapy

The wonderful Tanya Lacourse came by my house last week and took some amazing shots of my office. Click here to see all the images.

The details

I've had many people ask me about my cabinets. "Where did I get them?"

Well, these are not store bought modules, they were designed by me, and then I had a local cabinet shop build them for me. It was so awesome seeing my ideas being built before my eyes, I think there is video of me dancing somewhere...

I didn't aways have a plan of going local. My first thought was to check out California Closets, but after going to one of their showrooms I realized they make their cabinets out of particle board - a fact that's not apparent from looking at their prices: they're expensive! So after that, I started calling local companies and they offered to make my cabinets with higher quality materials (furniture-grade plywood) at more reasonable prices. Going local surprisingly got me exactly what i wanted for the right price. For anyone who lives in NH/MA the company I went with was Alosso Custom Carpentry, they are located in Manchester, NH. They mostly do traditional stuff, but they had no problem building what I wanted.



What are they made of?

I've had a lot of particle board items in my life and the stuff just isn't made for long-time use. All of my particle board items eventually start to sag and I really didn't want a saggy office. So I got my cabinets made out of furniture-grade plywood. It's a higher-quality plywood than you usually find at the home center, with higher quality veneers and less voids between them. These suckers will never disintegrate or sag! They are spray painted with a really nice smooth white lacquer finish. Super happy with the results!

Office progress: floating shelves

Yay! My office is looking fab. All the big things are finished, next is just trim work, dealing with ugly cords, and making a cork board. The cork board kind of scares me since it involves rolling on contact cement...

So last night my husband put up the floating shelves, wow it's amazing how horrible things made is China are. The shelves don't even line up, and there is no way to fix them. Ok, yes I understand things may not line up, but man give me a way to adjust, ugh. So I just placed items on there to make things look even. Note to self make your own floating shelves! I would have had my husband make them, but I really wanted to see that wall finished. This what I get for being impatient.

Ok back to the positives, very happy with my office. Wished I had done it sooner.



Right before I shot this image I grabbed this wire sculpture I had laying around and stuck it up in the hanging light. It needed some pizzazz.

Office progress

Had my new built-in installed this past Friday and I'm really happy with it. The room looks so good and has so much storage, hopefully that will prevent me from making that room a mess again. I'm now working on the smaller things like base molding and cabinet lighting. I also have this big wall space that I've decided to fill with some floating shelves to hold my art and other fun objects. I could have made them myself, but I'm just too impatient, I just want to see this room finished!

The green chairs and table were bought off of Craigslist only a few months after I moved in, with all the changes I was going to sell it. Had this idea of a tall table with Bertoia wire stools, for now I'm going to keep it, until I change my mind.

It's here!

Hot damn, it came out even better than I could imagine. When I look at the final result it's like looking at a page in a design magazine! Ok, so it looks really pretty, but the main thing is I finally have some sufficient room for all my art and craft supplies. To think it used to look like this a month ago... yuck...



So happy to have more storage space. This is so much deeper than what I had before and it's all hidden, either in the drawers below or the frosted glass doors above. Very happy.

Office progress

Images shot over a 3 year period

As you may or may not know, I recently designed some more cabinets for my studio and had a local contractor build them. I did this last year, too, for the other side of the room. Since these are not as massive as the first project, the turn around time was thankfully much faster. It looks like they will be installed in a few days, so expect an update soon. I can't wait to get my studio back in order!

The Kvissle, metal organizers with cork accent

Ikea has some clean modern organizers for your workspace. I especially love that these are not made of plastic but powder coated steal and have a bit of cork mixed in. Click here to see the whole Kvissle collection.

My old workspace

In my old apartment, I had put together a nice little studio space. It was cute as a button, with tons of natural light, a big work table and (what I thought was) a lot of storage. But after a few months of running my business out of my studio, the work started to spill out into the dinning room table and the kitchen counter. It's amazing how much stuff goes into making art, packaging it and shipping it all over the world; there's never enough storage for supplies!

Anyway, I'm in my new studio now and I'm still fighting for more storage space. However, I finally feel like I'm getting close to perfect. Besides the new cabinets, I'll also be adding a tall work island in the middle of the room. I'm still not sure what it will look like, since I'm always changing my mind, but I will keep you posted.

Old Apartment: Trying to get Floyd's attention and scaring him in the process

Island location

Destruction & Plans

Ok, back to that mess...

I packed everything up and stuck it in the spare bedroom. Then I had my "do first, think later" tantrum and began ripping that sucker out. It really felt good taking a hammer to that old wood, very therapeutic.

THE PLAN



I'm going to have a carpenter build this for me. This will really help with my office storage issues. Frosted glass doors on top and drawers on the bottom.

Office hardware: edge pulls

It took me forever to find out what these things were called - edge pulls. I ordered a few samples and I decided on hardware that screws in from the bottom of the cabinet. You can order the pulls in one long 6' piece and cut them out yourself. I think we may end up doing that since it's cheaper. These are going to give some character to the cabinets.

Studio explosion

This is part of my studio. I've had plans for a while to rip down the old built-in cabinets and put in new ones with frosted glass doors and sturdy drawers to hold all my art supplies. I was originally planning to work on it in the spring, but our winter has been so mild here in the northeast, that I've decided to start now!

By now, long-time readers of my blog should be experiencing deja vu: Last year I replaced another large built-in unit with storage cabinets and added a large desk area. It's worked great so far, but I still need even more storage space! I'm running a business out of this office and all my materials, supplies, products, etc. have started to accumulate and spill out of the cabinets and into the workspace. Something must be done!

Below: the work I did last year

Pioneering Industrial Designers Celebrated on New Forever Stamps

I just grabbed 2 sheets of these today. Love them, especially since they're forever stamps.

The U.S. Postal Service dedicated a new sheet of stamps honoring 12 of the nation’s most important and influential industrial designers. The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum was the setting for the dedication.

The 12 designers who are honored on individual stamps include Peter Müller-Munk, Frederick Hurten Rhead, Raymond Loewy, Donald Deskey, Walter Dorwin Teague, Henry Dreyfuss, Norman Bel Geddes, Dave Chapman, Greta von Nessen, Eliot Noyes, Russel Wright and Gilbert Rohde.

“Encompassing everything from furniture and electric kitchen appliances to corporate office buildings and passenger trains, the work of these designers defined the look of modern America, and in doing, revolutionized the way we live and work,” said Dean Granholm, Postal Service vice president of Delivery and Post Office Operations, at today’s ceremony.

Joining Granholm to dedicate the stamps were Bill Moggridge, director, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; Ralph Caplan, design writer; Jessica Helfand and Sylvia Harris, Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee; Derry Noyes, art director; Margaret Bauer, art designer; and Stephen M. Kearney, executive director, Stamp Services.

Click here for more info.

Office progress

I've had tons of readers demanding what happened with my office... Well it's "done" but it never really felt finished. I'm always in there working and making a mess, so I didn't really have any amazing photo's to show you all. Here are some pictures I took last month at night. I've since changed some things around. I'll keep posting pictures, no matter how horrible I think they look. I love seeing other bloggers behind the scene pictures, I need to just suck it up and post, post post! lol

Office progress

Friday morning 4/29

It took all day last Friday and Monday to get it done, but they're finally up! I'm gonna need a ladder to get at those items I'll store up top, this thing is soo tall.

The week has flown by and I've been working so hard to get rid of all the stuff I have no use for anymore. I took 5 trips to the dump to recycle loads of cardboard boxes that I had been hoarding, I threw away left over wood we removed from the walls and I have 3 boxes that are going to goodwill today. It feels so good to get rid of it all! Well it's hard for me to let go but once it's gone you never miss it.


My husband Al installed some LED lights that will illuminate the counter space, it's amazing how much brighter it looks in there now.


I'm still going though stuff I have no idea what to do with. I'll keep you all updated!

It's happening!

I'm hiding in the bedroom right now while my husband is out there supervising.

I took a few pictures of the cabinet units so you can see the scale of how big these things really are. The first picture is the 8ft cabinet that will hold large boxes and tubes, next is the cubby storage for my 24" rolls of printing paper. My mind is a frenzy just thinking about putting all my stuff away that is currently scattered thoughout my house. It's been a dream of mine to have a designed office for a long time, so happy it's finally coming true. This office project has been ongoing since January! Back then it was snowy and spring wasn't in sight, so I took a crowbar at them! Maybe it was cabin fever, not sure, happy I did it.

I finally found a picture of the old closet doors back from 2008. There was lots of wasted space up top and my things would never fit in there. Two years later they looked like this...

Is it done yet?

Nope, I've been patiently waiting for weeks, but no cabinets yet. My house is in a horrible state of disarray, I do all my work: cutting, packaging, and everything else on my dinning room table. It's a big sloppy mess.

The cabinet guys say they will be here tomorrow installing, but they said that last week and the week before that. So I'm starting to loose my mind. Please send some good vibes my way for the install tomorrow so I can spend my weekend organizing my new office.

Office progression

This horrible thing above was my old storage closet for my business supplies, etc. It originally had 3 large sliding doors that I eventually took off. It was all stained dark brown so I started painting it, but then I felt like it was a waste of my time painting this ugly thing. It was like this for so long! Then back in January I went a bit crazy and starting destroying it! That thing was built like a rock, but my husband and I killed it! GRRR!



Then we moved on to the walls. So many people might be mad at me for tearing down the pecky cyprus paneling, but it made me so unhappy. We live in the woods and we get a mouse every so often and I would sometimes hear one crawling in there. Yuck! The paneling was riddled with masonry nails. If you don't know what those are imagine pulling out 100 mini swords in stone. That took us a month to finally complete.



Then the plastering... I'm all for doing it yourself, but the plaster I bought at Lowes was so thick. I had such a hard time. After 2 months of working in this room I just lost that energy, so I surrendered and called a professional. In a week it was done!



MMM smooth. In this picture we are putting up the vintage dome light that used to be in the dinning room. The walls arn't painted just yet. The plaster on the walls is very similar to the paint color I chose. I actually really liked the plaster color and found paint that was a close match.



Painted walls, new window frame, and new blinds. I can't believe how good it's all looking! It's about one more week until the cabinetry will be delivered and installed. Yipeee!