Office product reviews – IdeaPaint whiteboard paint

Office product reviews – best kit for the home office

It’s essential to have the best tools for maximum productivity when you work from home, but it can be difficult to decide exactly what is the right purchase. The following office product reviews have been carried out by home workers with that purpose in mind.

IdeaPaint whiteboard paint

What is it?
IdeaPaint whiteboard paint turns any wall or other non-porous surface into a whiteboard you can write on and then erase.

How easy is it to use? *****
We bought the clear version of IdeaPaint so that we could paint over our current wall colour but you can also get coloured tins. I had a professional painter come in and do it for me as I am not experienced, don’t have the necessary equipment and wanted to make sure we had a smooth gloss finish.

The kit comes with 2 tins and a roller and a very clear set of instructions. Once you mix both tins you have 1 hour to apply the paint so need to make sure you have everything in place and the wall area prepped and measured out. You then need to wait 4 days before the surface has cured and you can use it.

There were no paint smells during this time. The area covered for the tin we bought was 50 square feet and it’s important to measure this carefully and not ‘stretch’ the paint. Kits for larger surface areas are available.

Does it do what it claims? *****
Yes, IdeaPaint claims to turn your wall into a whiteboard and that is exactly how we now use it with normal whiteboard pens and a soft cloth to wipe it down.

I noticed that some colour pens (blue and green as opposed to red and back) do leave a bit of a shadow (it’s very minor – you need to look very closely – but I am a bit of a perfectionist with stuff like this) but you can buy whiteboard cleaning spray which I intend to do. It comes with a 10 year guarantee.

Quality *****

Does it increase your productivity/ save you money, time or hassle? *****
Best thing ever. We are now using a whole office wall for brainstorming, lists and ideas where we would otherwise have filled scraps of paper and sticky notes.

I share my office with my husband/ business partner and this helps us get ideas out quickly and work better together. I had been looking for a large size whiteboard and found that these were both very expensive but also quite corporate looking with ugly aluminium frames which I didn’t want for our small home office (which gets converted to a guest room every now and then).

Worth the investment? *****
Ideapaint is not cheap, £179+vat for 50 square feet, but I am very happy with my investment. It was cheaper than a large whiteboard and looks better. I am tempted to get a wall done in the kitchen too so the kids can have some fun and we can use it for shopping lists, maths homework and games!

Overall score ***** 5

Best for
Home offices with a clear wall where you want to be able to brainstorm and write your to do lists and get rid of all those sticky notes!

With thanks to Francesca Geens of Digital Dragonfly for kindly contributing to our office product reviews.

Francesca says, ‘IdeaPaint is a US product that now has a few UK distributors. I purchased mine via Green Monkey. Delivery was very prompt.’

(If you’re curious what Francesca gets up to in her home office with the whiteboard wall, check out her articles on using technology in your home office).

Francesca has also carried out a review of Smart Wall Paint for us and been similarly impressed.