I love to cook, and while I sometimes use my iPad in the kitchen for recipes, I’m old enough that I still use a lot of paper recipes.
I like to keep the recipes clipped up somewhere near eye level instead of floating around the counter with my ingredients, but somehow I just never came up with a good way to do it. I’ve tried magnets and various clips, but I wanted something a little more permanent.
Once we got into the current phase of the kitchen remodel, the DRG came up with a great idea – attaching a clipboard on hinges to the side of my upper cabinets so that it swings out to the perfect spot where I do most of my prep work and lays flat when not in use. I liked the idea a lot, but decided to modify it a bit and mount a piece of wood with 3 bulldog clips so I could put multiple recipes up at once. I also figured a hunk of wood would be easier to get hinges into than a thin clipboard.
I cut a scrap piece of 1 x 8″ wood to about 18 inches – plenty of room for all three clips.
I painted the board with some leftover paint, rubbed some watered down lighter paint over that, sanded the edges a bit, and then gave it a quick coat of polyurethane.
I picked up a three-pack of bulldog clips from Hobby Lobby, spray painted them oil-rubbed bronze and screwed them into the wood.
(these are surprisingly hard to find – Staples only had huge ones)
I added a couple of hinges and mounted it to the end of my upper cabinets.
Yes, I know these are probably overkill for this project – but the next size down was too small.
Our little project came out great! The hinges swing the board out to the perfect spot for me to read recipes while I’m making a meal and it folds flat when not in use. It would be a great place to put a small notepad for a grocery list.
There are all kinds of variations for this – the clipboard idea is a good one, especially for a more contemporary kitchen or maybe a cute cutting board for a farmhouse vibe? Plus, if you use items you already have, you could do this project for almost nothing.
