Although our office is by far the smallest room in our house, it is one of the rooms that I spend most of my time in.
In the last year or so the amount of work I do in here has increased along with a load more paperwork that we have to keep on top of. Staying organised in such a small space is essential, but with chaos slowly starting to take over we had to come up with a better system to be able to keep on top of things.
In an attempt to stay organised and manage the day to day planning of our home improvement projects and blog, we had to come up with a solution that made it easier for us to keep an overview of the tasks ahead. As we can’t magically make our office bigger, we’ve gone vertical and have installed a cork board – but not just any cork board.
Because of our small space, we knew that a standard cork board wouldn’t cut it for us, so we went big and have covered the whole wall in cork!
Not exactly a high tech solution, but our corkboard wall works really really well. It’s easy to attach things that need doing, group items, collect samples and most importantly it helps us keep our desk free of clutter and tidy.
Installing the corkboard wall was really easy – most of the work as usual lay in the preparation which in this case involved emptying most of the room. With so much stuff crammed into one space, it inevitably took a while. We also removed our rope pinboard, filled the holes and repainted it.
I’ve seen larger cork boards made up of individual mats, but I really didn’t want to see any seams and was worried that the finish would look like we’d just stuck a load of mats to the wall. To keep any joins to a minimum, we used a large roll of cork with an adhesive backing instead of individual pieces.
We didn’t bother to prime or prepare the wall in any other way than making sure it was clean and free of dust and dirt. Using big sheets of cork is fiddly and definitely a two-man job.
Before starting to attach the cork, we drew a vertical line down the centre of our room. Whilst we want as little joints as possible, we didn’t want to end up with a slither of cork at one end of the room. Working our way out from the middle of the wall ensures that the pieces on either end will be an equal size (which is what you should also do when you lay tiles, too).
The vertical line down the centre of the room (our line is from the wall to the door frame) is also ideal for aligning the cork. None of our walls are straight, so having a line that we know is vertical makes it easy to get everything straight and level.
Then it was time to measure – never assume that anything is straight (we’ve learned the hard way). We used the central line as a guide to measure and then just used some scissors to cut the cork to size.
Next, we lined up the top of the piece of cork with our picture rail (which we know is level) and with the vertical line. When we were sure that the piece of cork would fit, we peeled back the top of the backing and pushed the top of the cork to the wall.
When everything lined up, we started to pull back more of the backing while at the same time pressing the cork to the wall and making sure that it’s smooth and lump free.
The first piece was the most difficult to attach – after that it was just a matter of working our way around the room and lining up all other pieces cork pieces with the first.
The only thing that was slightly more fiddly was cutting out the hole around the light socket, but even that wasn’t difficult to do. We removed the switch first (obviously turned off the electricity first, too) and glued the cork to the wall and over the socket hole. It was easy to feel the position of the hole through the cork as it gave way slightly when you pressed it. With a craft knife, we then cut a small hole in the middle of the socket area. Then it was just a matter of cutting more and more of the cork away until the socket was free and then reattaching the light switch.
We used 5mm cork. We figured it would be strong enough to hold more pins and heavier items like our calendar and thicker brochures. Ideally, you may want an even thicker corkboard wall than that, but we didn’t want ours to be thicker than the picture rail above it. We didn’t bother to back the cork as we’re not worried about the pins causing damage to the wall beneath. We figured that the wall will need repainting anyway if we decide that we don’t want the cork wall anymore, so filling a few small holes really doesn’t seem like a big problem.
We’ve been using the corkboard wall for a couple of weeks now and it’s already helping us to stay organized and keep a clear desk. Having such a large space to temporarily store things and have an instant overview of the tasks ahead is already making a big difference to my workflow.
How do you stay organised? Do you like to keep a clear desk? What does your ideal workspace look like? Do you have any tips for staying on top of day to day tasks?
Such a great idea, you must be so pleased!! Having spent the entire morning today ploughing through mountains of paperwork that had built up I totally need some kind of new organisation system. It looks great X
Thanks Lins! It’s working really well for us so far – although it is already covered in a load of junk and way to many things that need to be sorted!
Cx
Great idea!! I need one of this!! BTW where did you get the ball lights hanging from your shelf pls?
Thank you Taz! We got the lights while on holiday in Paris. This is the shop where we bought them http://www.lacasedecousinpaul.com/en.
Cx
Thanks Ayaz. Yes, we bought our cork online (there’s a link to the roll we used in the post). This is the shop where we bought it http://cork24.co.uk/.
Cx
Hi Christine,
Did you remove the corkboard when you moved out? If so, was it hard to remove and was the wall damaged in any way? I just received my cork rolls, can’t wait to get started :)
Thanks! Maaike
Ohh, how exciting, Maaike! We didn’t remove the cork when we left so I’m not too sure how easy it’ll be to remove. Having said that I think you should be able to pull (possibly scrape) it off without too much difficulty. I assume that it will tear off the paint underneath but I think that the plaster underneath that should be fine.
Would love to see a picture when you’ve finished!
Cx
I actually made one too, just finished last week!
A great way to make this project more budget friendly is replacing the cork sheets with a cheaper alternative… Cork coasters!
This was a super budget friendly wall, Rotem! It only cost around £40 for all supplies and it was more than enough to cover our whole wall! The main reason that we opted for a sheet of cork is that we didn’t want to see any joins. I hate when you can see where things have been stuck together and just think it looks much cleaner and more professional if it’s one big wall of cork rather than a patchwork. Using one big sheet of cork was probably also much quicker than using individual tiles. Yep, you can call me lazy! ;)
Right, I’m off to check out your wall – can’t wait to see it! Thanks for sharing!
Cx
Wow, cork is so much cheaper in your area!
Everywhere I checked it was more than double the price you mentioned and ordering online would add a high shipping rate that would make it unaffordable as well.
Saving for college here… (:
I actually liked the brick-look result, so maybe I shouldn’t title it “affordable”, just a “different version”.
Thanks for commenting back!
I always appreciated bloggers that take the time to reply :)
DIY is always about doing what’s right for you! Everyone has a different preference and the only person you ever have to really please is yourself! Glad to hear you love your wall!
Cx
i don’t understand how it was £40 for the whole wall? the link you gave is £59.99 for 5m x 1m sheet – am i missing something?
We covered the wall a while ago so I can only assume the price for the cork has increased. We also had a lot of cork left over, so theoretically we could have covered something else, too.
The link is to the exact cork we used and at the time it was the best value cork we could find. It’s always a good idea to shop around though – you may be able to find it cheaper somewhere else.
Cx
Looks good, I thought about doing this but with screws/wall fixings at multiple points. Is the the adhesive outrageously sticky? e.g. Do you think it would take a lot of the wall with it if you had to remove?
Thanks, J
Thanks, Jarrett! It’S sticky but not excessively so. I would say it would cause a mess when removing it and it would definitely rip off a lot of the paint underneath but I think the plaster on the wall would be fine.
I’m not sure about screwing it to the wall as I’m not sure how easy it would be to attach or attach things to it if it isn’t fully glued to the wall.
Cx