Think Big, Plan Big: For Home Office or Small Office – The Whiteyboard Review

Home office design is what makes your office more functional and attractive. Several months ago in The Smarter Home Office blog I wrote about IdeaPaint a new product that allows you to turn a wall or table into a white board. This product has recently received LEED  (green) certification and is now available at Lowe’s  For those of us who can’t paint a wall for various reasons, I found another white board-type product  in LifeHacker and the New York Times: WhiteyBoard.

WhiteyBoard gives a big space to map out big ideas

For the small office or new entrepreneurs on a tight budget, WhiteyBoard may be a solution to visualize your ideas, communicate among team members and plot-out project timelines.

I have used a WhiteyBoard in my home office for a month. Today’s post is a review about:

• What is great about WhiteyBoard,
• Tips on what I did to make it work better for me, and
• What is not-so-great about Whiteyboard.

What is great

Whiteyboard is a sheet of vinyl that is like the top layer of a white board – the part you actually write on.  What is neat is the back of this sheet has an adhesive similar to Post-It®, but it holds up longer. It is removable and repositionable.  It does not take the paint off the wall when you want to move it or remove it.

It writes smoothly with erasable markers. Expo® markers erase easily using a tissue. I have been using my WhiteyBoard for a month now and there is no “shadowing” or residual image of the writing and drawing when I erase.

I bought the biggest size they offer 3.3 feet by 6 feet to allow room for mind mapping, project planning and idea capturing. I cut the sheet to fit my wall and had some left over for a good size white board to-do list near my desk. The sheet comes with a peel off backing, so it was easy to cut to size.  Please be aware the surface will not be perfectly smooth (unless you attach it to a very smooth surface). It will pick up the slight imperfections of your wall. For most of us this is not a problem.

What I did to make it work better

The Whiteyboard came in a very sturdy shipping tube. When I took it out, it was a very springy sheet of plastic that kept curling up. I knew that hanging it vertically in that curly state would be a challenge.

I prepped the wall by washing it in plain white vinegar. (Some online reviews said it did not stick to the wall very well.) I wanted to be sure there was no dust, grease or stickiness that would make hanging the sheet difficult or undermine the adhesive.

I then hung the sheet on the wall using blue painters’ tape. This way the plastic and its backing sheet could “relax” from the curliness it picked-up in the shipping tube.  I let it hang there for a week. Then I peeled the backing off the top edge of the plastic sheet and carefully pressed the sheet to the wall and teased the bubbles to the edges. The WhiteyBoard website has several very good how-to videos.

What is Not-So-Great

So far I have been very pleased with the Whiteyboard product. It does everything it says it will do.

But I was not pleased with customer service. The website said that it will arrive in 1-2 weeks. I waited 3 weeks – no delivery. I went to the website and that is where the difficulty began. The only way you can contact them is through the “contact me” page on the website. There is no telephone number or address on the site or anywhere on the internet.  I used the “contact me” form to let them know I had not yet received the item I ordered,  A week later I received a reply that read in part “You have the patience of a saint….The product will be shipped to you in the next few days.”  Again I waited a week, submitted another query and several days later received exactly the same message: “You have the patience of a saint,” etc.  (looking online I discovered similar stories of delayed deliveries – up to 2 months in one case.)

Long story short – It took 6 weeks to receive my order. Meanwhile my credit card payment had gone through and I was caught in an insane loop of lack of  real responses to my concerns. Whiteyboard People – you have a great product. Please support it with better customer service.

I am very happy with my Whiteyboard. It is just what my office and I needed. I recommend the product. Just be prepared for a long wait to receive your item.

Update 5/1/2012 – A recent visit to their website looks like they are getting their act together about customer service. I will keep you posted.

Learn more about how to set up a productive and comfortable home office with my book The Smarter Home Office: 8 Simple Steps to Increase Your Income, Inspiration and Comfort.   Ranked #1 on Amazon.

photo by Linda Varone