Idea Exchange: How to make your own dry-erase board

Since our 24-hour emergency veterinary hospital shares a treatment area with a wellness clinic, we often have a lot of patients in house at once. I wanted a large white board to keep track of our patients, so we bought an 8-ft piece of melamine board at a local hardware store.

Using black pinstripe tape to make thin horizontal lines and black craft paint to make a thick vertical line, we created two full white boards. The melamine board works just like a white board—the dry erase marker comes off with a wipe (and sometimes with a bit of alcohol if we've left the marker on for several days)—but costs a lot less.

On our D.I.Y. dry-erase board, our patients are color-coded by reason for being in the hospital. Red is for emergencies, blue is for daily cases and routine surgical cases, and green is for shelter animals.

Michelle Grimes, veterinary technician

Lebanon, N.H.