Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Shower Board as a DIY White Board


I'm finally getting around to sharing our DIY white board! It was a cinch to make. First, we purchased a piece of inexpensive shower board from Home Depot. We were happy with the 4' x 8' piece. If we had needed a smaller piece, we would have asked them to cut it on site. Shower board is literally the stuff that goes inside a shower.

Next, we screwed it into the wall. Then we used trim to frame it. (And by "we" I mean our friend Chris who volunteered to help with that part of it in exchange for a cooking lesson.) Then we caulked everything, primed it, and painted it. I purchased vinyl lettering from this Etsy shop. I used thin tape to create the outline of the monthly calendar and some sections on the right (for example, one of them says "On the Menu" and I list out the meals we're having that week). Each month, I use a dry erase marker to label the days. I transfer events from the yearly section over to the monthly section. That's it! 

I was afraid it would stick out from the wall too much or be really distracting, but neither of those things ended up being true. We really like it! 



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4 comments:

Unknown said...

All of the white boards in my school are made of shower board. It is an absolute nightmare for a teacher. After a month of so it stops erasing without tremendous scrubbing effort. I'm sure it's fine for at home, minimal use. In a classroom it is AWFUL!

Angela Mae said...

What a cool idea! I've been trying to come up with some sort of home-base message/command center for our house. White boards sometimes show up at goodwill, but this idea is much cooler.
That's interesting that Jillian has had a poor experience with them in her school - I wonder if using different types of dry-erase markers would impact that. At my work we have a few that take some serious scrubbing and others that wipe right off.
Anyway, so glad to "see" you again, Sara :)

Jennifer said...

Hi Sara :)
I tried e-mailing you twice at your yahoo account, didn't hear back. Would love to hear back from you.

Unknown said...

Angela- I've found it depends on the age of the board and frequency of use. I am an ESL teacher so I am constantly recording things on the board. In my old classroom, where the board was only 1 year old, it was fine. In my new classroom it is impossible. I bought a big whiteboard at a thrift store and have leaned it on the chalk tray of my board. It really disrupts the flow of a lesson when you have to stop to scrub the board for 5 minutes!

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