This right here is my ink swatching spot. It’s our dining room table, just adjacent to the kitchen. Near the kitchen sink for easy pen water and pen rinsing action, away from the carpeted floor (though I’d hate to clean ink off the hardwood!) and with lots of elbow room. You can see my elegant brown paper bag used as a blotter for any spills. In the past few years, our entertaining has dropped to a nice round zero, so I’m not sure I’ve cleaned up my inky spot in quite a while. What you don’t see are all the crates and cubes that used to sit on the table, the floor, and the next chair over.

Why don’t you see those cubes? It’s not embarrassment that keeps me from sharing them (though maybe it should be)… it’s that I finally fixed the problem. While I know Ana loves her Raskog cart dearly, I went ahead and ordered a knockoff from Target last week. And on Sunday when it arrived I gleefully cleaned, sorted and emptied out all those different spots and loaded everything onto a handy rolling cart. Now I can store it in my closet to keep it out of the way and roll it out when I’m ready to swatch. In that top tray? New inks I’ll be sharing soon, a new notebook, and a few other fun things.

Three cheers for getting organized!

The post My humble workspace. appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

I’m a huge fan of Rickshaw Bags. Ever since my first daily-carry Zero Messenger Bag (now 10 years old and still looking great), which has traveled with me to four continents, I’ve found reasons (and excuses) to buy more bags in other colors, sizes, fabrics and styles. I also have several stationery accessories. Handmade in San Francisco, the products are all well made, durable and – the most addictive part – color-customizable!

Rickshaw’s Plush Valet Tray ($34) is not an item that initially struck me as useful. Traditionally, a valet is used by men as a pocket dump. Since I don’t carry coins, keys, knives or anything else in my pockets, I don’t have this need. However, I do have a specific art table need, and when I spotted the cushy valet, I suddenly realized what its purpose is.

When I’m working on a drawing or other project at my desk, I’m constantly picking up and putting down various pencils, pens, scissors or other tools, and I don’t like the noisy clatter they make on my desktop surface or a hard tray. I’d tried paper towels and fabric to set tools down on, but round pencils kept rolling off.

The rectangular 4-by-8-inch valet is an ideal size for giving my currently used tools a soft, silent place to land – it’s plush-lined! Yes, my pencils now have a more comfy seat than I do. I don’t have any of Rickshaw’s gorgeous, plush-lined fountain pen cases or Coozies because I refuse to let my pens be better dressed than I am. OK, I do have one Clover Pen Sleeve (alas, no longer available), seen in this post, which also shows a couple of my many Rickshaw bags. But the Clover has a specific travel purpose beyond keeping my pens warm and stylishly dressed.

I chose Cordura fabric in Iris on the outside (in homage to my original, well-traveled Zero Messenger) and orange plush on the inside. 

The valet has an interesting and functional design: In use, the four corners are snapped together into a simple tray. When unsnapped, the valet goes flat for storage or travel. It’s also available in three square sizes and a slightly less cushy version in waterproof EPX fabric.

This is one of those things that I did not know I needed until I saw it, and now I don’t know how I ever worked at my desk without it! Did I mention that it’s color-customizable? Don’t play with the customizing tool just before bedtime. I guarantee you will stay up too late trying out all the color combos.

Tina Koyama is an urban sketcher in Seattle. Her blog is Fueled by Clouds & Coffee, and you can follow her on Instagram as Miatagrrl.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by JetPens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

The post Desk Accessory Review: Rickshaw Bags Valet Tray appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

Stuff that worked:

Standing Desk from Ikea

I didn’t think I needed an electric powered standing desk but I love it! Yes, Ikea has hand-crank models but do yourself a favor, if you’re considering a standing desk, spend the extra money for an electric powered model. First thing in the morning or late at night, cranking frantically to adjust your desk is not something you want to be doing.

Apple Music and AirPods Pro

After half-heartedly futzing around with Spotify for several years, I bit the bullet and switched to Apple Music. I am an Apple user through-and-through. While Apple Music isn’t perfect, I find it easier to make playlists, add new music  and even find new music. I don’t know why Apple Music is easier for me to use, it just is. I also OD-ed on podcasts using Overcast and a lot of videos on YouTube.

Rediscovering my Filofax

Thanks to some serious housekeeping and mutual enthusiasm over the Filofax from my pal Julia, I rediscovered my old Filofax and have been using it for notes and planning. Like many, my planning needs changed over the past two years. I have gone from working for the same company to freelancing to a new job all in the past two years, all while social distancing and often working from home. My planning needs have changed dramatically, as I’m sure its been for many other people. Switching to a system that allows me to quickly and easily add or remove pages and sections has made it a great new-old option for me.

Office Chair

I tried an assortment of different chairs over the past 18 months since the start of the pandemic and I had yet to find a good one. Like so many people, I grabbed whatever I could find at Ikea initially. As you’d expect, “any old chair” didn’t really work well. I tried a couple random purchases from Amazon and a kitchen chair without much better luck. But lo and behold, as I was planning this post, my DH rolled a secondhand Herman Miller Aeron chair into the office as my Christmas present. He was a little unsure if it would be a good gift but I love it! My chair is the small size, which, to some, will look a chair for a doll but when you’re only 5’4″ on a good day, most chairs are just too big. o, I’ve got my Goldilocks chair… finally.

Stuff that didn’t work:

I tried upgrading my lighting set-up for the blog with some of the more streamlined flat panel LED lights. Worst decision of my blogging career. I am sure that someone else could make them work but I tried recalibrating my set-up repeatedly and still had to retouch my photos to try to get more accurate color to no avail. One morning, practically in tears of frustration, I took the new slimline LED panels and buried them in the basement and reinstalled my giant fluorescent tube-powered soft box lights. While i was disappointed that I couldn’t get the LED panels to work to my satisfaction, reinstalling the old soft boxes was such a relief it was hard to stay too upset at the wasted expenditure.

Did your office set-up change over the last year or so? What has worked for you and what are you still fine-tuning?

The post My Favorite Home Office Items for 2021 appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

Most of us have worked (or will work) in an office environment at some point in our adult life and unless we start our own company, we are likely to end up in an office organized in what is described as an “open office.” You might call it a cube farm, cubicle land, rat maze, or equally derogatory term. Do you know how the cubicle was invented?

Prior to the mid-20th century, clerical workers sat at desks in the middle of what might have once been a factory or warehouse space– just rows and rows of desks in an open room with no privacy or sound dampening. By this time, the type of work was also changing — workers weren’t just typists and computers (in the add-up-this-column-of numbers sense) anymore.  It was becoming apparent that workers needed to be able to interact more as well as have privacy to concentrate.

In 1960 Robert Propst and George Nelson (yes, THAT George Nelson!) at Herman Miller set out to solve the issue by creating the “action office” with desks and work spaces of varying heights (standing desks in 1960!). The AO-1 was a bit too revolutionary for the time and Propst and Nelson set to work on a new version — the AO-2. I work in what I’m pretty sure is an original AO-2 from 1978. It’s since been renamed to “Action Office”  and is still in production.

I think I might like the original Action Office. I love the standing roll top desk!

What was originally conceived for the Action Office and what it devolved into for many of us is pretty strikingly different.

You’re in luck. This week, the folks over at Freakonomics feature Cubicles on their podcast. Go over and add this episode to your playlist and make that Thanksgiving drive to grandma’s house a little more informative.

Are you a cube dweller? Do you work from home? Do you like open office plans?

The post The Desk Set: The History of the Open Office appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

Fairly quickly, I knew that I would repurpose what had been my craft room (and general holdall) to an office/craftroom.  I had a fairly long, narrow bedroom to work with so I want to build in a comfortable workspace, as well as lots of storage.

The room has a north-facing window, which lets lots of natural light in, so putting my desk near the window was a must. I decided that I needed some drawer space to hold all the bits and bobs so my work space wouldn’t be cluttered. On the other hand, while I LOVE minimalist workspaces, I knew I wanted mine to have all my tools close at hand, as well as some homey crafty touches.

I settled on building my own desk out elements from Ikea.  I selected the Glasholm Tabletop which has a nice honeycomb texture and comes across as a pale green.  Underneath, I selected two black Alex Drawer units.  I ended up stealing a desk chair from my husband that he has had for years, so unfortunately I don’t have details there!

Other desk accessories that I find a must: a mug full of Marvy Le Pens, Ink Joy Gel pens, Bic Mechanical Pencils #2 (0.7mm lead), plus bonus knitting needles, a Black Metal Task Lamp from Target, a Baron Fig mousepad (reviewed here) and various plants, mugs, teas, and scales (for weighing yarn of course)!  As I adjust to my working schedule and daily tasks, I have found the Weekly Planner from Ruff House Art (review here) an invaluable tool and my current favorite.  I also keep a handful of fountain pens that are easy on paper at my desk: my Lamy Logo, TWSBI Eco and Retro 51 Fahrney’s 2018 Cherry Blossom.

As for decorations around the room I’m still working.  As you can see on the bulletin board above my desk, I repurposed knitted swatches I’ve made over the years into wall art. I’m already out of room though!

As part of making the room do double duty, I needed to reconfigure the space and make it more efficient.  I added a photo studio right next to my desk, for ease of photographing throughout the day.  I picked up an Alex Drawer Unit on Casters from Ikea to serve as a mobile photo studio.  Inside the drawers I have all my photo props stored, as well as notebooks, ink bottles and empty pen boxes.  Since it is on casters, I can easily move it over to the window to shoot photos in natural light.  For those times I can’t shoot in natural light, I’ve been using the Foldio 3 which I purchased back when it was a Kickstarter project.  I also have a set of lights that I purchased on Amazon (not pictured) that do a reasonably good job of helping light the space.

Beyond the photo studio, I purchased a Kallax shelving unit at Ikea, and repurposed some collapsible fabric cubes that I had bought at Home Depot a while back.

The other side of the room remained mostly the same, but I’ll share a few details with you now.  The main focus of the opposite wall is the futon, which we purchased a few years ago from Nebraska Furniture Mart. I don’t find the exact model now, but it is one of their Klik Klak series.  I am a consummate blanket knitter, so there are always cozy blankets there.  I also use the spot to sit in for my weekly podcast.

The mother of all disorganization is the baker’s rack I purchased several years ago from Home Depot which holds my yarn and fiber stash, as well as a variety of shipping materials, product for my Etsy shop, and anything the closet won’t hold (closet not pictured for your sanity and mine).  I find that even though the baker’s rack is cluttered, it is behind me while I work so there is inspiration there if I choose, but not if I don’t.

Finally, in the far corner, nearer the closet is a bookcase that holds all my craft books, favorite paper and hardbacks, scrapbooks and a little bit of everything else too. It’s a work in progress!

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of my new space!

The post Building a Well-Appointed Home Office appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

Over the holidays, my husband and I finally decided to overhaul our communal workspace using the Ikea Kallax worktable hack I posted about a few months ago. The room is a medium-sized, guest bedroom that is used as an office/studio/catch-all in our small 2-bedroom house. We replaced a small wall shelf with the largest Kallax wall unit book shelf with a row of cupboard and a row of drawer units in an effort to try to clear away a bunch of small, assorted rolling cabinets. Then we replaced a thrifted oval conference table with the Kallax worktable-on-wheels which also includes several drawer units and usable storage space underneath.

The horror was what the studio looked like before. So here it is:

I always forget what a pain it is to assemble Ikea furniture but its such a sense of accomplishment once its done. And it really is quite sturdy. The key with this Kallax shelf unit was to build it in the room. I’m not sure we could have gotten it into the room assembled as its basically 6 feet square and rigid and would not have fit around the corners of our tiny hallways. So if you are planning a similar project, plan accordingly.

We still need to get a couple good, adjustable stools to use with the table but overall the workspace looks so much better. Its brighter, more organized and so much more usable.

Assembly in progress above.

See how clean and perfectly stained the table top is? Took me less than a week to get an ink stain on it.

Bob used the instructions from the Kallax hack and mitered the trim perfectly. So professional!

No, I do not have a book problem. And those drawers are not full of pens and ink. Nope. Okay, that is a stack of typewriters.

The post Well-Appointed Studio Overhaul appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

After I wrote my post on the new Facebook office spaces, my friend Andy made me put my money where my mouth was and invited me to Facebook to tour the offices for myself. Since that was one of my most commented upon posts I couldn’t pass up the chance to see the campus for myself.

Was the campus overwhelmingly large? Yes. So much so that there are shuttle buses and bicycles to get people from building to building. But is also filled with light and art and posters and a sense of play. It was also a lot quieter than I expected it to be. People were very respectful of the open seating and kept their voices down in the open areas. They used the closed conference rooms and outdoor areas, the coffee shops and other communal areas for conversations. It was actually a very congenial environment and not at all what I was expecting.

There was so much art. And posters and graphics all pinned haphazardly to the walls which gave the space a casual vibe and made it feel partially like a college campus and partially like Disneyland for coders.

I also work in a large office with tons of cubicles and an ongoing attempt to have “open seating” despite the photo from the previous post, Facebook’s space actually has a warm comfortable vibe of a loft apartment rather than a corporate office that stripped all the walls out of the cubicles. Each employees space has personal touches that show their personality, some more than others, of course. Some folks work on large desktop machines while others work on laptops to be more mobile. Some people work on mobile apps and just wander around with their phone in their hands. What a way to function!

All in all, it was an inspiring day and I feel quite differently about the landscape, both inside and out, of the Facebook offices. And I’m supremely jealous that the weather is such in California that Facebook employees can essentially work outside in the roof garden 11 months out of the year. Makes me dread January in KC.

For even more photos, check out my full Facebook HQ album on Flickr. And yes, I’m eating my words a little now. At least they taste like asian noodle bowl and mint chocolate chip ice cream.

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A post shared by Andy Welfle (@awelfle)

The post A New Perspective on the Facebook Office appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

I was listening to Cortex yesterday and Myke and CGP Grey were mentioning the new Menlo Park headquarters for Facebook and the large, open-plan work space. This space is not a trend unique to Facebook. Many companies and office spaces are transitioning to open-plan work spaces for more “open communication” and collaborating. But is this type of space really the solution to that? Do people really collaborate more and do critical thinking in a space like this or do they end up trying to drown out all the distractions with headphones or go hide away in a closet somewhere to get some actual work done?

I find the interior space of the new Facebook office neither aesthetically appealing nor engaging for working or collaborating. It just looks cluttered, messy and noisy. The fact that no one is given any storage space nor are they encouraged to have personal items on their desk seem to only make it more disheartening and cluttered. The overly high, unfinished ceilings with cables descending down are even worse! I think of something Trevor Noah said about not moving into Jon Stewart’s office after he left the Daily Show… he talked about how the whole point of moving up in the worked and getting out of poverty meant he didn’t want to have to live in a space with exposed brick walls again and what was it with white people and exposed brick? I feel the same way about wealthy tech companies and exposed wiring? You can afford to have that sh*t covered up! This whole space gives me a case of the hibby jibbies!

For a more in-depth view of the new Facebook work space, there is a 3+ minute video tour on YouTube.

I really hope that the pendulum of the open floor plan office starts to swing back the other way because I don’t believe that this much openness is genuinely conducive to non-distracted working and thinking. I believe it leads people to seek out other places to work, or they choose to come into work either early or stay late in an attempt to avoid distrations. I think the myth of multi-tacking needs to stop. It makes people sloppy and tired. We can multi-task for a little while but, in the end, I don’t think its effective, efficient or healthy. I don’t think we, as idea workers, can come up with our best ideas when we are constantly distracted by co-workers, bleeps, or other disturbances. Yes, its nice to have a way to bounce ideas off other people, but we need to find a better way to do it other than forcing people to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with headphones on while they madly type into their laptops and mobile devices. That’s not really collaborating, is it?

Thus endedth the tirade.

The post Is this the definitive modern office? appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

(From left to right, top to bottom: Better Homes & Gardens, Brownstoner, Jeremy Bittermann for The New York Times, Danielle de Lange.)

I hope these spaces feel colorful and inspiring. So many of the images I find around the internet of workspaces lately have been stark white and barren and don’t feel like inviting workspaces. These spaces felt tidy but productive with evidence of people actually utilizing the space for a variety of tasks.

The post The Desk Set: Cluttered but Clean appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

There are lots of great detail photos and “where to buy” guides interspersed in this office tour of fashion blogger Caroline Harper Knapp of House of Harper. Also interspersed are other workspace and office tours previously posted on My Domaine. Eye candy galore.

(via My Domaine)

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