Up until a few days ago I had a problem in my office. The cork board that I whipped up with a custom fabric cover just to match the room was not so coordinated after all. In fact, it looked ugly and dingy with its dusty blue fabric against the brighter blue wall. Ick!
Eager to remedy the situation, I went out and bought an unfinished wood frame at Michael’s, took it home, and painted it white to match the accents in my room.
Eeep! It wasn’t the right size! (I’m really quite awful at eyeballing measurements). Why didn’t I check the size first? Whatever was I to do? I returned to the store. None of their cork boards fit their frames. Hmm. I wanted to do this on the cheap, anyway, and buying all new parts would contradict that goal. Since the frame was a must, I decided that I would make a cork board custom-sized to the frame.
I picked up some cork tiles (less than $4) that I could easily cut. I made a backing to affix the tiles to by recycling a piece of foam core board (cut from an ancient presentation at work that I had never-thrown-out-because-I-didn’t-want-to-waste-the-board) and cut it to fit the frame.
Once I had the board cut to size, I cut the tiles to fit and attached them with my handy-dandy stapler.
That’s not very pretty, but that’s what the fabric cover is for! I ripped the fabric off my old cork board (note to self, I had attached it WAY too well) and covered the new, home-made cork board with it. (Again, using my handy-dandy stapler.) I then affixed it to the back of the frame by hammering in little tacking nails (and hammering my fingers a few times in the process). Ta-dah, a new framed cork board is born!
I still don’t love how dark the fabric appears against the blue wall, so I think that I’ll eventually take it apart and use a different fabric. But more importantly, the next tasks for the office are:
- Find and re-cover a mid-century modern chair to match my mid-century desk
- Pretty up my book shelf and add some white framed photos to the walls
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