DIY Chalkboard

Hello everyone, hope you enjoyed the post about the rustic box that I made.  Sorry that it has been a while since my last post.  As some of you may know, I work at Verizon Wireless and we are in nightmare holiday season and that leads to long weeks with lots of hours up at the workplace.  So thank you for you patience and hopefully this post will hold you over till the next one.

Amber has asked me for years if we could somehow incorporate a chalkboard into our decor.  When we moved to the new house we were determined that we were going to get a chalkboard in here one way or another.  We looked for something that we could hang but we soon learned that when you have a house with a lot of arches and a lot of windows, that leaves you with one thing...no wall space.  With the valuable wall space we do have, we decided to put other stuff up there instead.  I mean, we love a good chalkboard but not over snapshots of our kiddos.  So we moved on from that and thought "hey what about painting a wall with chalkboard paint maybe that will solve our problem"...false. We also learned that writing with chalk on textured walls was pure utter failure.

Well it just so happened that while Amber was looking for some inspiration for our Christmas card photo (coming soon), she came across what could be a picture of our much needed wanted chalkboard.

First I started out with a 8ft piece of 1x12.  I chose this size because it gave me a lot of vertical space for writing and also because it fits height wise with your counter to cabinet space.

I like to use pine on a majority of my projects because it is a soft wood and looks great when you apply stain to it.  You can cut the length to whatever fits your taste.  I cut mine to about 20 inches because that is what the space allowed.  After cutting the piece of wood I sanded it down to make sure it was really smooth.  The sanding helps to not destroy the chalk and makes it easier to write on.  After sanding I started to apply the stain.  I used a Rust-Oleum stain from Lowe's called Weathered Gray.  I have been obsessed with this stain as of late and you will see many other projects with this stain coming soon. 

Love this stain! Highly recommended.

As you can see when the stain dries, it gives the wood a weathered look, but in a great gray color which is in right now.  When the drying was done (which was more like 30 minutes instead of the hour that it says on the can) I began to tape the border.  I used some painters tape that I had left over from doing Bub's nursery. And it worked out perfectly in this project because the width of the tape was the perfect size since I wanted to show off a little bit more of the gray border because again I am obsessed with the way this gray stain came out.  

No need to worry about taping the sides

When taping make sure to do a good job sealing the edge because you do not want a paint bleed to ruin your project.  After I double checked the edges, the board was ready to be painted.  I used a chalkboard spray paint by Valspar and have been really pleased with the results.  It goes on easy, dries evenly, and erases well.

I did four coats of the chalkboard spray paint because I wanted a very thick canvas that would stand several uses.  Something that I learned the hard way was to not let the paint sit there and dry for too long because it will adhere to the painters tape.  Make sure to apply the spray paint coats quickly one after the other and remove the painters tape immediately after the last coat to avoid "ripping" the chalkboard paint.  After the last coat was applied, I began to pull the painters tape off.

If you went to our wedding you know a little something about that towel underneath.

I made sure to let the chalkboard paint dry really well and after that I applied a thin coat of chalk over the whole board.  This will create a thin barrier between the paint and chalk when you write on the board and make it easier to erase the board.  After all the waiting, Amber was pumped when the chalkboard was finally done.  I am pretty sure she decorated it that night.  

All said and done this project cost me about $15 and I made three of them (one for us, one for our photographer, and one for a friend).  It was simple to make and only took about 1.5 hours including drying time.  I am really happy with the way this project turned out and hope you guys enjoy your chalkboard as much as Amber and I have enjoyed ours.