In case you are interested, Homasote is a type of wallboard made from recycled paper compressed under high temperature and pressure and held together with glue. You can find it at Home Depot (insulation aisle).
Also, you can easily paint homasote to match your wall but the pin holes start to add up over time making for an ugly surface, so I recommend covering the board in a self-healing fabric (anything beefy enough to recover from pin holes). I used a heavy cotton twill found at most fabric stores. Choose a very neutral, solid color (beige, natural canvas or any grayish version of a solid color as I did here) so that it doesn't compete with all the great work you'll be posting over it.
Just ordered this wall-mount magnetic thingy from The Container Store for the pushpins> I like the bubbly 60's vibe of this, it reminds me of the cool, yet ridiculously expensive, molded plastic organizer, the Utensilo. Next up in the home office : a new desk chair.
I really want this one: The Eames Aluminum Management chair.
Buuuuut since that one is about 2grand, I think the budget is pointing to this fairly similar one, also in leather, I saw on cb2.com (Crate and Barrel's funkier sister store) for A LOT less:
Now, hopefully this serves as motivation to get going on that long list of personal design projects...