Hitting the Jackpot: Kitchen Chalkboard

We have a large, somewhat odd shaped wall in our kitchen/breakfast area that I've never really known what to do with. So it's been bare. For years. It occured to me a few months ago that this would be a great place for a chalkboard. I thought of a thousand things we could use it for and now that we have it, I LOVE IT! The kids are loving it too and right now we're using it in conjunction with Jack's preschool class as a way to reinforce what he's learning there. Each week we put up the letter of the week from preschool and all week long we write down all the words we can think of that start with that letter. On the bottom of the chalkboard, he practices writing the letter. It's worked out great and it's gotten Jack excited about learning and that's no small task. Even though she's not quite there yet, Claire's getting a head start learning about her letters too. So here's how we made it:

I went to Lowe's and bought a large board that is used for wainscotting. I'm sure you could use any piece of thin wood. This was easy because it was already a good size and I didn't need to cut anything. We also bought some trim, magnetic primer and chalkboard paint. The whole project cost about $80.

First, I sanded the back of the board.

Then, I used a thin foam roller to roll on the magnetic primer. Let me just say this about the magnetic primer. I read a lot of reviews about this before purchasing and most of them were really positive. I didn't particularly care if the chalkboard was magnetic, but Mark though maybe the kids would like it, so we went ahead and did it. Even after three coats, it will only hold the lightest of magnets. It's also heavy and adds a lot of weight to the final product making it just a little harder to hang up. If I had it to do all over again, I would have skipped this step.

I didn't have to wait very long between coats of the primer which was nice so I got it all done in one day. Next, I used the same kind of foam roller and rolled on the chalkboard paint. The paint is pretty thick, but it rolled on smooth. I read some reviews that said it could only be brushed on, but I had no problem with rolling it. Using the roller did give it a rougher texture, but I sanded between coats and I'm happy with the end result.

I had to wait 24 hours between coats of the chalkboard paint, so I did three coats over the course of the next several days. Again, I sanded between coats to even out the texture a little. When it was all done and had dried for another 24 hours or so, I primed it by rubbing a piece of chalk over the entire thing. Sometimes the first couple of things you write on a new chalkboard are impossible to erase because chalk gets in those new little crevices and it doesn't come out when it's erased. Priming it gets chalk in all those crevices to start with so everything you write on it afterward is easily erased.

I did the easy part of painting and Mark did the hard part of measuring the trim and making the frame to go around the chalkboard. He cut the corners with his saw and nailed and glued them together. He used clamps until the corners were dry. Then we painted it white to match the rest of the trim upstairs.

To hang it, Mark laid the frame down unpside down. Because he had routered out the inside of the frame, he was able to just lay the chalkboard into the frame. He used tape intended for HVAC (because that's all we had laying around) and secured the board in place.

Then he used some complicated method involving painters tape that only he understands to measure the wall and figure out where to hang it.

Once we knew where it was going, he screwed it into the wall through the molding with big drywall screws. Over the next few days, we filled the holes with putty and touched up the paint.