I learned about homasote when I was working at La Jolla Playhouse and they had big pieces of it screwed to the walls. It's sold as soundproofing material but it is amazing as a pinboard. It's nice and thick, pins push easily into it (with a very satisfying crushing sensation) and it is CHEAP.
It was a little bit difficult to find, however. It's easy to order in bulk, but since it comes in 8'x4' sheets, you don't actually need a lot of it. I went to several of my local home improvement warehouses before finally finding it at the enormous Home Depot on Balboa Avenue. (This is my favorite Home Depot. Is it weird to have a favorite Home Depot? I don't care.) Not every HD carries it, so I had to hunt around, and for some reason I thought it was easier to drive to each of these places than to search on the internet to see what each store carries. Or, I may just like going to home improvement warehouses.
So I drove the Prius to the Home Depot, forgetting that I was going to try to fit an 8'x4' sheet of wobbly material into it. Luckily, the guy in the cutting center agreed to cut it in half for me. He was hesitant, because there are certain things they aren't supposed to cut because of toxins or something (I wasn't really paying attention, I was just trying to figure out how I was going to get it into my car, but it turns out it's non-toxic anyway) but when I started brainstorming about buying a utility knife in the store to cut it myself or driving 20 minutes back to my house to get the truck, he relented.
I think I paid about twelve bucks for it.
Anyway, I brought it home, and it sat in my studio for about nine months, and then everything came out of the studio so we could build the addition. So then it sat in the garage for another six months, and I finally dragged it out today.
The other thing I bought when I was fantasizing about this magical pinnable wall space was burlap coffee sacks.
I got them at this wonderful local coffee roaster in Barrio Logan called Cafe Moto. They are one of our favorite raosters, they're solar-powered, they're local, they're friendly, and you should go get coffee there right now.
Anyway, when I saw these burlap coffee bags, I knew I needed to do something with them.They sell them for a dollar a bag. They usually have a pile of about 40 in the back room and I dug through them and pulled out the ones with the best art and colors. I really only needed, but I may have ended up buying about half a dozen. Then Bugatti claimed them, so I had to go back and buy more.
