Quick Office Whiteboard - for Cheap!

Lately I have been working from home more and as I have been outfitting my corner of the bonus room and working on some tricky projects, I thought it was time for a whiteboard.  When it comes to writing software, I really need to get the problem written out and spread out before me so I can take it all in at once. Naturally, this means I need considerable whiteboard space.

I was about to head to Walmart and just quickly get whatever I could, when my wife reminded me we had used shower board in the old root cellar as writable surface.  So I went to Lowes, instead, for a project!

 Shower board has a white glossy side and a dull brown side.  It is somewhat flexible and not terribly thick. It can be cut with a utility knife and easily drilled.

To get it mounted to the wall, I needed a way to hold the weight of the sheet while I drove wood screws through pilot holes into the wall studs.  A quarter inch strip of scrap pine was screwed to the wall temporarily along the bottom of the level line I had drawn on the wall at the 3 foot mark.

The shower board rested easily on the pine and made it painless to get the five screws in along the top.  With the strip still in place, I put five more screws along the bottom all about 3/4" from the edge.

Then it was safe to remove the strip and start cutting the trim boards to fit.  I found some nice looking polystyrene trim boards for $8 each, featuring a burled maple or mahogany print.  While it could be cut with a blade, my goal was to get it done quickly and neatly, so I used the electric miter saw.   The only trouble there was that the hot plastic chips kept fouling the laser guide.

The trim went up easily with my electric brad nailer.  A mahogany colored marker touched up the edges and the end product is functional, not unattractive, and huge!