It's a brick.

This pretty desk has moved upstairs to my bedroom.

It fits beautifully in this space, where it has displaced a bookcase. The books that were resident in the bookcase were redistributed to other rooms, and their move triggered a massive culling of books that no longer need to live here. That's another story, though.

The story here is that this desk was in danger of getting banged up by the closet door at its side.

I tried installing a gadget that attaches to the door hinge and stops the door from opening past a certain point. The hinges on this closet door, however, do not have a removable hinge pin to allow attachment of a door-stopping gizmo. 

So I went to the hardware store and bought one (1) brick. I had to drive through the pick-up station at the back of the store to collect my one (1) brick after paying for it in the store. The man who loaded it into my car snickered. So did I.

Here's my brick, wrapped and sewn into a few layers of batting, softly padding its roughness and heft.

When I bought my beautiful, blue, raw silk duvet cover for my beautiful and elegant bed, I also picked up this curtain panel, thinking I'd get more when the store restocked, and I'd use them for my windows. Then the store went out of business, and I was left with just one curtain panel!

I cut the border off the curtain panel, and used it to cover my padded brick. I just wrapped and stitched by hand, and used a tie from the curtain when I needed a little more fabric to cover one side. 

Now it's sitting on the floor next to the desk, looking a little like a small, lost pillow, but also sort of whimsical and charming. And it's doing a fine job of keeping the door from smacking against the desk if one of us forgets to keep the door from swinging open too widely.

Have you ever dressed up a brick? Or something else that is rough and utilitarian and prettied it up? Do you have a good idea for keeping my door from banging into the desk?  And what should I make with the rest of the curtain panel; real pillows for the bed, maybe?