DIY Office Board

I've been talking about updating the desk area for a good while now. I'm anxiously awaiting the warmer weather so I can spray paint the desk a nice peacock blue. But I've also been staring at an Ikea As-Is find for about a year now... and then it occurred to me that I could kill two birds with one stone and make an organization dry erase board for my office area!

I was a little motivated by this Ikea door sitting in my living room...

But I was even more motivated by this little contest I found out about called Creating with the Stars. They're picking 12 little ole bloggers (like me) to pair up with 12 fancy professional bloggers for a DIY contest! The entry requires submitting one of my little projects and I thought this would be the perfect thing! Figured I'd enter and we'll just see what happens... never done anything like this before...

So here we go. I started with what I think was a door to a cabinet or entertainment center from Ikea. We were in the "As Is" section at Ikea one day a few months back and found this gem for only $5. I knew I could do something with it for just $5 so I picked one up and it's been just sitting in the living room ever since.

I brought the door over to the office area of the living room. Yep, needs a little color right?

And I liked the way it seemed to line up.

I figured we could turn the door sideways and hang it on the wall above the desk to use as a dry erase board of sorts. But I had a few challenges:
 - The door's not light. It weighed in at 18 pounds!
 - I wanted the board to be pretty secure so it wouldn't wobble when I tried to write on it.
 - I needed to be able to easily access the back of the door so I could change out the calendar and backgrounds as needed (you'll see later).

So we bought these 2-inch narrow hinges from the hardware store. If the door was hanging on hinges I could 'open' the door and change out anything behind it whenever I wanted. It did make for a complicated process though... Multiple times during this process Kyle and I were asking each other, "are you sure we're not crazy for trying this?!?"

We bought 4 hinges for about $5 total and I lined them up on the backside of the door. I put them on what was to be the 'top' of the board once hung.

Drilled some pilot holes making sure to not go through the front of the door (and staying away from the glass).

We used the screws that came with the hinges to attach the hinges to the door. They were the perfect length (not too long... didn't want them to come through the front of the door).

We made sure to check out our stud situation using a handy stud finder. We marked the studs on painter's tape and made sure to mark any electrical wires that the stud finder picked up (don't want to hit any electric current).

Like we figured, our studs didn't quite line up with where we wanted to hang the hinges. So I watched a little Ron Hazelton video online, and decided to use these molly bolt-type anchors. 

They required we drill a 1/4 inch hole for each anchor... made me so nervous when Kyle was drilling. He's a total pro, but we were drilling holes in our walls...

We followed the instructions like the rule followers that we are...

But then we ran into a little problem once we attached the door to the wall. See how the screws that came with the anchors are round on top? They wouldn't let the hinges close flat... oops.

So I ran and got these. These wood screws were the closest thing to the screws that came with the anchors but they had a flat head that would sink into the hinge so it could lay flat.

Then I added some bumpers to balance things out on the bottom half... Aren't they pretty?

And so they even things out. See the top with the hinge on the left and the bottom with the bumper on the right?

And then I stood back and admired my work! Woo hoo! ... then I realized it looked crooked?! Do you see that?

So I re-checked it with a level. And it was very level...

So I checked the desk. Turns out the desk wasn't quite level. That should be an easier fix later. I checked the baseboards though and it seems the floor is level (no major probs).

So then it was time to make this thing cute and functional.  I started with the calendar. I had planned on printing out a nice calendar for the center glass panel, but at the last minute I thought to simply cut out a page from my yummy-chicken-chain calendar. :)

I pulled out a few pieces of scrap paper and some fun little pages from a Smash Book we have for our guest book...

First panel is for notes of any kind. I had no way of taking a picture of this one without being in it... :)

Second is the calendar. I think I'd like one a little bigger for next month maybe?

And I just put a fun piece of paper in the third panel just because I liked it. Maybe I'll put pictures behind it later or make a place to write the dinner menu for the week or something...

Isn't it great? I just love it :)

Here they are with a little dry erase magic...

(Can you see the secret note I left for Kyle? Gotta go in order...)

I'll be staring at this corner a little more than before...

There it is. Just because something started out as a door in the "As Is" section of Ikea doesn't mean it can't be an organization dry erase board that brings lots of life and color to your home office. Why did I wait so long to do this?

What are you making this week? What are you putting off making? You should do it. Maybe you can enter it in the contest too? Or maybe you can simply go visit my link (I should be #249 "As-Is Ikea Door turned Office Board") on the contest page. And I think I get votes or something if you click on my little link on their page! Check it out!