Desks + Bulletin Boards + Burlap

Back to School Series – Desk Organization

This summer I have been working on giving my kids’ rooms a re-fresh.  We had a few different needs come up in our house that led to all these little changes.  Before, our two oldest shared 2 built-in desks in the family room.  It came time to give my oldest his own desk space in his room.  He had the perfect nook for a built-in desk.  About this same time our youngest moved out of her crib {big milestone = sad day}.  Her room is really tiny.  Like if it didn’t have a closet it might be considered one, tiny.  We opted for a built-in bed/bookshelf/nightstand in there.  The first project was moving my son out of the family room and moving my 2.5yr. in.

I had the desk top re-painted.  I’ve had to do this twice in the last 3 years which made me decide to add the glass top to protect the desk.  The girls and I will pick out fabric or paper to line it for some color and pattern.  Our books will be replaced with children’s books and art.  The shared drawers down the middle contain art supplies, coloring books, + paper doll sets.  Inside the upper right cabinet are family games.  The upper left cabinet contains, extra printer paper, ink cartridges, photo paper, and other desk supplies.  The bulletin boards are from Ballard & Designs.  I love the clean modern look of these while also adding the rustic feel and texture.  The chairs are from Ikea.  They come in a variety of fun colors and are so affordable.  Just a few more personal touches and the girls will be all set for the new school year!

When designing my son’s built-in desk, it was becoming clear to me that the rest of his room still looked like it did when we bought all his little boy furniture when he turned 2!  It was time for a refresh for him.  I wanted the room to reflect him today, but also be able to grown with him as he approaches middle school and beyond.

The main focus on this room was to  add a built-in desk in the nook opposite this wall.  We designed one that had lots of shelving for all his trophies and collections that were piling up everywhere before.  The room was painted a sandy white color.  The trim and built-in are Decorator’s White by Benjamin Moore.

The shelving is all adjustable.  There is great storage in all the drawers too.  The desk is also covered with glass.  I added some large grommets from the hardware store as spacers between the glass and desk to give it a slightly industrial look.  My son loves to organize and is really particular about how his things are displayed, as you can imagine he had a field day filling these shelves.

The desk was designed with a large bulletin board in the center.  It’s 36 x 36.  Enough for pinning up class photos, ribbons earned, magazine tear outs of his favorite sports teams + artwork.  I was hoping to find a bulletin board similar to the one I used for the girls’ desk, but couldn’t find one large enough for that space.  I had seen all sorts of DIY fabric bulletin boards and decided to give it a try myself.  It turned out pretty good for my first DIY project like this.

I had some sounding board cut to size at the Home Depot, bought the burlap at Joann’s, and found a super easy alternative to using upholstery nail heads.  Instead of using individual nail heads which would have been extremely time consuming measuring each one and keeping them all evenly spaced and perfectly in line with each other, I found a product which essentially is a roll of faux nail heads all connected.  Every few nail heads is attached to the board.  It really simplified the project for me.  This bulletin board was then mounted to the wall in the built-in.  Another example and useful tutorial on creating a DIY Burlap Bulletin Board can be found on Itsoverflowing.com.

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