How can I get whiteboard or dry erase space, without paying a lot of money?
I used those cling sheets that cgg mentions (or something very close to it) for a workshop I conducted once and they did the job but were a PITA — they’re VERY thin and hard to get to lay flat on the surface without crinkles and bubbles. Also, because they were particularly slick, the dry erase ink came off too easily – brushing it lightly with one’s hand while writing nearby would cause text to blur.
As suggested in the “Cool Tools” link, tileboard works great and is really cheap. Any building supply store should have it — sometimes it is called “shower board,” sometimes “tileboard,” sometimes a different name, vinyl something-or-other. I suggest bringing a dry erase pen with you and discretely testing a corner, because some brands of shower board erase less well than others — some of them have surfaces that are too porous and the ink stays instead of erases (I found the Home Depot variety to not work, but the stuff from another store worked great). You can glue it up, or use a few screws to hold it up (for a cleaner installation, you can use strips of molding around the edges, but that is only for looks — it will stay up without that if you want to be really low-tech).
At one of the NPO’s I frequent they bought the cheapest panel board they could find to cover their aging concrete block walls. They paid very little per sheet. They’re white and glossy. I tested a small corner w/ a DE marker and it wrote and un-wrote it perfectly. They got it at Lowe’s, but it exists at any hardware store. It comes in 4×8 sheets, and you can do with it as you please. It’s not true dry-erase board, but so long as you don’t erase it with bleach it’ll last indefinitely. (Alcohol is the best way to erase dried-on marker.
For large areas, I don’t like dry erase as much. I like the wet-erase vis-a-vis markers or grease pencil and a big ol’ piece of glass or plexiglass. Doesn’t come off accidentally as easy. Old dry erase marker is also kind of hard to get off compared to the grease pencils and wet-erase markers. I realize that doesn’t answer the exact question you asked, but it’s an option.
