Stainless steel isn’t magnetic. While that’s completely obvious to lots of people, I’d never given it any thought one way or the other. It was just one of those things that I’d never had any reason to ponder. That is, until our oven broke, which led to replacing all of our kitchen appliances so that they still matched. The look we went with? Stainless steel.
Like most families, the refrigerator served the dual purpose of keeping stuff cold and providing a sort-of family bulletin board, with magnets collected over the years holding the kids’ artwork, school projects, and a small dry-erase board that was used for shopping and to-do lists, messages, and the like.
Well, for those folks who paid more attention in science than I seemed to have, where this story is going is obvious: new fridge gets installed, and I go to put the magnets back on, helplessly watching as they immediately fall to the floor. Ugh.
While our new fridge does its primary job (keeping stuff cold) fantastically well, it was a total fail in that other job. Ikea’s DEKA wire provided an alternate (and ultimately nicer) way to show off the kids’ art, but the dry erase board was sorely missed. That is until Think Board sent a sample of their product for me to review.
Think Boards are essentially temporary, repositionable dry-erase panels. They’re made from a clear adhesive that will temporarily stick to pretty much any smooth surface, but can be freely moved as needed. The website advertises using them on desks and walls, but I put the one they sent on the fridge and it hasn’t moved since.
I did find it fairly difficult to get totally smooth, and the adhesive side picks up fingerprints very easily, but neither of those really concern me. At least not enough to not recommend the product, because we can at long last write stuff on the fridge again. And that makes it totally worthwhile.
The sample I got was the 8½ x 11 Think Board Kit, which contained a Think Board, dry erase marker, and spray to make erasing easier. It retails for $17.99. They also have 30×30 and 54X30 boards, and 14×14 and 50×50 boards printed with calendar grids. While putting them on walls is the obvious choice (although that texture they use for walls in most homes limits the places you could put it), I could see using the bigger ones as an overlay for a table so younger kids could draw to their heart’s content without damaging the surface.
All in all, Think Boards are really pretty great, and definitely something worth checking out.
