From The Desk Of..... bryn alexandra interiors

When I originally planned to work from home, I knew I had to develop good working habits from day one. And that includes working from a desk 9-5. I was worried I'd get into the habit of lounging on the couch in my pj's eating potato chips with my laptop on my lap.

Surprisingly, I have come to really love sitting at my desk all day and working... I don't have to force myself at all! Maybe because I finally love what I do? Or maybe because I love my desk so much? or both :)

One of the biggest improvements to my desk is my mousepad I DIY'ed. Normally I don't use a mouse pad, but this apartment complex painted their counter tops with texture - boo. So a mouse pad was a must (I haven't had one since high school I think???)

The diy aspect of my new mouse pad came from the amazing mind of High Street Market. First, you must click here and check out what she did to an IKEA 99 cent mouse pad. Here, I'll post some pictures:







One of my pet peeves is having to move the mouse over to keep from falling off a mouse pad (hence why I never used one), so I decided to make a HUGE mouse pad. I don't have pictures of the "during", but the materials consisted of:

- left over cork board (from my diy corkboard project)
- fabric (small remnant left over from a client project)
- spray adhesive
- scissors

Easiest DIY ever.







Some misc. comments:

- I love my desk chair. It was a splurge but well worth it since I'm in it all day long.

- I also love my second screen. It's a left over from my husband's college years and by no means fancy, but it does the job and is PERFECT for idea boards (you can see one I'm working on now)

- See my little bird frame in the first picture, behind my lamp? I just got it on sale at Anthro... I got it because of the crown - now that I live in the Queen City and all :)

- My Inspiration Board is coming along! I love adding tear sheets and pictures to it. You'll notice I re-did it with my spray adhesive, and had to take the ribbon off. I may add it back someday when I get around to going to Hobby Lobby.

That's all. Let me know if you DIY a mousepad, too!

Thanks again for the idea, High Street Market!

EDIT - I just got a fun comment: "Looks great! I love the chair as well. What type of candle do you have burning? Also, do you work to music? What type?"

To answer the questions.. the candle I have on my desk is my favorite candle I have right now. It's called DANI in the Zante Currant scent. I only listen to music when I'm designing.. I can't have other words going on when I'm writing (emails, blog posts) or else I get too distracted (A.D.D.??) But it's almost always Regina Spektor :)

DIY Nailhead Corkboard

One of my local clients and new friend Sarah asked me if I could do something similar to Erika's fabulous inspiration board:



And I said, sure I can!

The process was actually much simpler than I thought and it turned out really nice.

The materials involved are:

Corkboard (we used a 3' x 4' from Staples)
Fabric (we used ivory linen)
Nailheads (we used these)
Hammer
Spray Adhesive
Staple gun
Iron

Steps:

1. Iron your fabric like crazy to get all the wrinkles out (especially if using linen)
2. Spray adhesive the fabric onto the cork section of the board only, leaving the moulding trim unglued.
3. Nail in the nailheads with the hammer- I measured the width between the nailheads with the width of my pinkie finger. This was easy and assured that everything was even :) Go along the line of the board's moulding trim and you will get a straight line.
4. Spray adhesive the fabric onto the moulding
5. Staple gun the fabric onto the back of the board and you're done!

I didn't take pictures of the entire process.. I grabbed my iPhone mid-way through to snap a few pictures. I'm really bad about taking pictures for my DIY projects... I know, I need to work on that. Bad blogger!





[It never fails. When you have a black dog, there will always be black dog hair in my pictures.]



The finished product!


Yes, I am aware of the terrible picture quality. But I got a promise from Sarah to get pictures of it hung :) I'll be sure to share with you when I get them!

Also, if you are local and want me to make one for you - shoot me an email.

Bits From My Week

I think I'm going to start posting random stuff from my week on Fridays. A mix between client stuff, blog love, etc. Thoughts?

- First up is this wallpaper. I recently had it installed in a client's powder room. It's awesome. Instead of running horizontal like most grasscloth wallpaper, it runs vertical. It's made out of jute and is fuzzy, in a good way. I'll share pictures when we get the mirror installed.



- I love this new fabric from Dwell Studios + Robert Allen. Who doesn't love peacocks?



- I've been getting little things here and there for Thanksgiving, including these awesome vintage salad plates:



- Did you see Erika's latest project pictures?!? They are ah-mazing. She is up there in my top 5. And it reminded me how much I love this fabric she used for curtains:



I used it on a cork board in an office earlier this year:



It's great on pillows, too!

- And last but not least, a big THANK YOU to Makeunder My Life and High Street Market for featuring me on their blogs yesterday. And a big THANK YOU to all your wonderful and funny comments this week.

I'll leave you with a picture of my girl Sam..



I'm still totally jealous some of you guys had (still have) her. ;)

My Office Inspiration Boards

Yes, I'm still working on finishing my office. I know! I can't believe it's taking so long either! But it's almost done I promise.

But in the mean time, I do have my inspiration boards to share with you.

I knew I wanted an inspiration board on the entire wall in my office. I was inspired by this board in the Urban Grace Interiors office:



Erika mentioned in her post that she used a 4' x 8' board. I really really wanted this size, but they are $220 and it was a little out of my price range.

Instead, I took out my trusty painters tape and taped out four 3' x 2' boards (which are much more budget friendly) on the wall to see if it would create a similar look (sorry, no picture of this). And luckily for me, it did! I purchased four of these boards at $19 each = $76, saving $140. I shipped site to store so shipping was free!

And here are my four inspiration boards:



This project was a very easy DIY. I used inexpensive linen-like cream fabric from Mary Jo's. I ordered and added antique brass nail heads from here (I found the link via Jenny). The tedious part was nailing in all those nail heads into four cork boards.




(See the three images of dresser styling? I just recently printed them out... they are from this post. Love it!)



I use the boards for both personal use (things that I think are pretty and inspiring) and professional use (fabric swatches and sketches for clients). I love being able to look up from my desk to reference swatches and stuff for my client's jobs.

Now hopefully the rest of the room will be finished soon :)

A collection of random

Some random things.

1.) Sarah Richardson has the cutest jackets. (Yes, I know I realize I'm posting about her 2x this week.. sorry!) For fall, I'd love to live in jeans + top + jackets.





And my personal favorite, as seen in Sarah's House:





Those leather elbow patches!

EDIT - A lovely reader informed me that the jackets are by SMYTHE, Tommy's sister (Tommy is in the green sweater). Oh how I am so glad to know this.. I adore Tommy and now I love his sis too. Someday, I'll be able to afford to buy one. Add that to my list of little goals in life.

2.) I thought I'd share a different type of design board with you. Sometimes, e-decorating clients come to me just needing the finishing touches. They have all the furniture, but would like new paint, new accessories and sometimes a couple new small furniture items here and there. This is an example of such:



This usually only takes around two hours billed at my hourly rate of $50.

3.) And speaking of e-decorating... I'd LOVE to get some images of my previous e-decorating client's finished spaces. If you have used my e-decorating services, please send me pictures of your "afters" :)

4.) It's no secret that a decorator/designer's home is usually put on the back burner, and ours is no exception. I've been busy, so my office design has been put on a slow hold. But I do try to make some progress here and there. Here's a half finished project I worked on this weekend:



5.) Even though my cork boards aren't finished yet, I do have my push pins sitting in my really cool huge, heavy marble (or granite?) 1960's ashtray given to me by my husband's grandma.



It's one of my favorite things in my office. I asked my husband why his grandma had it, they don't smoke. He said she just picks up random cool stuff at garage sales.. woman after my own heart.