11.19.2014For Fun
DIY Measuring Wall
We’ve had some fun making a new creation in the office: a DIY measuring wall. When we moved into our office, it was connected to an adjacent suite with a door. The owner of the building came in one weekend and removed the door and boarded up the opening with a 4’x8′ piece of 2″ thick plywood because the tenant space next door was leased. Fair enough. After more than a few weeks looking at the barely primed blank piece, we decided to make something of it.
We started by painting it white, and then taped off a square foot, a square yard, feet, and inches. We thought it might be handy to see a square foot and a square yard because we often have to think in those terms for selecting finishes.
Our original idea was to follow this up with paint or vinyl lines and lettering depicting standard heights of objects. We thought we could indicate dining and cafe chair heights, countertops, ADA compliant surfaces, door knobs, etc. However, this would limit our use of the feature wall. Instead we used Idea Paint. It’s a pretty unique product that lets you paint a single clear coat over any color wall paint and it turns the wall into a dry erase surface.
As you can see above, we can use a white board marker to indicate heights, or just draw out ideas. We’re able to see this measuring wall from our desks and it’s come in handy when making design decisions, such as setting the mounting height for a pendant light. This measuring wall can be as basic as any other white board as a place for writing out ideas, sketches or playing hangman; or it can be extra helpful in keeping a sense of scale and size for our designs.
