DIY Fabric Covered Cork Board

Our new house has a fantastic little “tech room” off of the mudroom with two built in desks.  Its like a mini office and it is where I spent much of my time writing my ultra-entertaining and informative blog posts.  It is a really nice idea but aesthetically there are some issues.

The builder put the outlets above the built in desk area so you can plug in your computer, etc but they are right smack dab in the middle of the wall.  I have my computer off to the side to maximize surface area on the desk so I’ve been left staring at this eyesore while sitting at the desktop:

Yeah, not so inspiring, especially when I’m blogging about decor and DIY projects.  Hard to inspire others when I’m staring at such a glaring flaw of design.  So after three months now of looking at that I decided the other day that I desperately needed to cover it up.  Like now.  Immediately.

Remember the Vintage Mirror turned Whiteboard? Well concept one for that project had me turning it into a cork board.  This had me cutting up cork tiles to fit on the previous backing of the mirror.  That idea turned out very badly and the project turned into a whiteboard instead.  Which left a patchwork of cork glued to particle board in the garage…you know, since I never throw anything away.

I measured how large of a surface I needed to cover the outlets in the tech room and cut the cork covered board to fit. (Circular saw through cork board is a mess, just in case you were wondering.) Then as fate would have it I found a great little cotton canvas fabric remnant at Walmart for $1.50.  Perfect size to cover the board-and very nautical which seems to be my thing lately.  It immediately brought to mind this linen pinboard from Pottery Barn.

Because the kids are still on the small side and they are continuously raiding my desk for contraband, I decided to forgo pushpins for now and instead used some bakers twine to create a criss-cross pattern that I could tuck my memos and inspiration photos in.

I was loving the way it was going but there was one last obstacle to overcome-the surge protector plug is ginormous.  I couldn’t just hang the corkboard on the wall because the plug stuck out too far.  I rummaged through my husband’s toolbox and found some sawtooth hangars and the biggest nails I could, about three inches long, and used them to hang the board so that it allowed room for the plug behind it.

So here is my new, improved view even as I speak write.  Much better don’t you think?

FYI-If you are a blogger-you must run to Infarrantly Creative’s site for her free blog planner-you can see a page of mine on the pinboard-its been invaluable to me for organizing and planning my blog posts and projects!!

By the way, don’t forget to enter the Spray It New giveaway-I know you want to win three cans of fabric paint!

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