foodliker – let's eat

Recently I’ve been working from home a lot more (doing my own things) and found the need for a whiteboard more and more critical. First it was a big paper calendar which really helped me get organized, but I needed more than just a schedule, I needed a visual queue and representation of what needed to get done. For whatever reason my favorite online list app just wasn’t cutting it, plus, I might have to draw some things out and think aloud from time to time. I had been taking those white boards I had access to at work everyday for granted and now it was time to bring that same idea of the home office.

After doing a little research and calling around to Home Depot and Lowes I found that some of the names and prices were outdated, but the concept was basically the same. The woman I spoke with at Lowes was incredibly helpful. You just need to ask your Lowes, Home Depot or Build Material store for Smooth White Panel Board, it should come in 4′ X 8′ sheets. Sometimes it’s called White Melamine or Tile Board or even Shower Board. Whatever you call it I found it in Aisle 48 with big sheets and boards and such. One side is like rough particle board and the other is smooth, glossy and white just like the white boards you’ve always used.

So $12 later I had run to Lowes, secured the board to the top of my vehicle and drove home. And on the way home I pulled over to duct tape the thing to the top of my car to keep the air from getting under it, because it wasn’t nearly as secure as I thought, but oh well.

Once home I took a measurement or two, chopped about 2 feet off the long end with a circular saw and boom, I was ready to hang it.  I suggest you use a helper, but I didn’t have one at the moment so I just used some duct tape to hang it exactly at the height I wanted and made sure it was level. Then, I placed a drywall screw in one corner followed by a little more duct tape leveling and then the second screw. Now I was ready to tie it down and so I ended up with about 6 screws total. *Warning if you decide to use duct tape for this don’t expect it to hold for very long,  if at all, the board fell at least once while Iwas loading up the drill. You’re probably better off using a helper, it shouldn’t only take a moment.

Of course, for just about twice as much, you could buy some Dry Erase Paint but that doesn’t seem like it works very well. If you’ve had experience with it I’d love to hear about that. There is another, pricier dry erase paint out there and I’ve heard it’s still just not worth the money. That’s too bad, but tell me more.

What did I do today? not much really, but hopefully I saved about $400 and tomorrow will be more likely to get a few more tasks done.