Kitchen Memo Board

The kitchen is the busiest room in the house.  Everyone in your family travels through it several times a day!   Choosing a kitchen memo board to fit your sense of style and taste is a necessity for this important place.

The kitchen is a great place for a combination dry-erase board plus audio or video display.  You can find kitchen memo boards that include a built-in microphone or camera so that family members record messages for one another.  Some models offer a digital display of photos when there’s no message waiting.  They come with electronic clock and calendar, or you can attach a small calendar and tablet to the board for the family’s use.

Other commercial models include clocks with message centers attached.  But if you decorated in grapes and you can only find one with cherries, for instance, don’t let that stop you!  No matter what theme you’ve used in your kitchen, there’s a way to incorporate it into a message center.  You just have to put your imagination to work.

Once you’ve got the right clock, find the right piece of wood.  You want something a couple inches wider than the clock so that you can center the clock on the top part of the board.  The length of the board should extend about twice the diameter of the clock so that you can make your message board.

Judge where you will place the clock against the board, and cut out a small hole so that the clock’s apparatus will fit through it.  You can use a jigsaw or a RotoZip.  This is necessary because you’ll need access to the back of the clock whenever it’s time to change the battery.

Sand all edges of the board, and paint it white or whatever color matches your kitchen.  Then you can affix the clock.  For the board extending below the clock, cut out a piece of cork and glue it to the board.  You can use a piece of dry-erase board instead, if you like.  Then decorate it:  If your clock has cherries on it, for example, look for cherry pieces or appliqués at the local craft store and glue them along the edges of this unique kitchen memo board.

What if you want to make something a little simpler?  Look for a cutting board that’s shaped like a big pear or apple, a shape that coordinates with your décor.  Buy a piece of cork and trim it to fit onto this shape.  Glue the cork onto the board.  Let the board’s edges show as a colorful border.

There are pushpins available in just about every style of fruit, and a whole lot of other designs.  If you want to keep it really simple, just buy a standard bulletin board, paint the frame to match your kitchen, and put your effort into finding the pushpins that match your kitchen’s look.

Some people like something a little more functional and a little less obtrusive.  The perfect type of kitchen memo board for them might be a display that’s half bulletin board and half dry-erase or chalk board.  You can find them with little shelves above to display trinkets, and hooks attached along the bottom to hang your keys.  The most important thing is to find something that serves two purposes:  It holds or displays messages, and it gives you pleasure to look at it.

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