One of the hardest things that we left behind when we moved was our giant chalkboard.
Especially because I knew as soon as the new owner moved in he was going to rip it down.
Boo.
The only thing that got me through it was planning Ginormous Chalkboard version 2.0.
Thankfully our new house had a wall that was simply perfect for it.
Supplies:
Masonite
(it comes in a 4x8 sheet. I had the Lowes guy cut mine to 4x6)
MDF strips
(I used two 6ft. and two 8ft. pieces)
Caulk gun
Paneling glue
Primer
Chalkboard Paint
(There is even colored chalkboard paint. Eye candy.)
Nails/ Nail Gun
Saw
Apply the paneling glue liberally.
Press on to the wall.
Level.
Use small nails in all of the corners and a few on each side to keep it in place.
Prime.
(You can do all of the painting outside before. It was raining and I didn't want to wait.)
Paint 3-4 coats of chalkboard paint.
Sand in between coats.
Measure, miter, and attach trim with a nail gun.
(Don't be jealous that my rad mom has a nail gun, miter saw, and the skillz to use them. I'm pretty lucky, as well as clueless on how to do this step by myself.)
Countersink nails and fill in with spackle.
Sand and paint trim.
Then look at the pretty.
FOR THREE DAYS.
Total torture.
The paint needs to cure before you can write on it.
Torture.
When it is dry rub the entire board with the edge of a piece of chalk.
The even coat makes the board ready for writing.
Erase.
Starfish, dingleballs, and cute pictures of you family are optional.
Or required.
Good job!!!
For a fraction of what you would pay at Pottery Barn or Ballard Designs, you just made your very own happy message center.
Yay!
LOVE it. Totally doing this to The Boy's room. Can I get away with doing his ENTIRE room? Yeah, I thought so, too. Hooray for my next project. I'm already mad at you for making me wait 3 days with a grouchy 2-year-old who NEEDS to draw on his walls. Ha!
ReplyDeleteLURVE!!!
ReplyDeleteWhen we were growing up we had one in our bedroom that was from an old school house HUGE and I can't wait til my little girl understands chalk is our friend NOT food!
love it. it's presh.
ReplyDeleteIt is beautiful! I think if my hubby gets his new position for work I am going to make a gigantic chalkboard at our new house too :) If not I will have to find somewhere to put one in this house! Anyways I was just thinking maybe you can fancy up your clothes pins with scrapbook paper and Mod Podge! Just a thought :)
ReplyDeleteSo cute! I love a great chalkboard (I'll admit I'm a bit addicted to the cutie-patooties!), and really liked this one you did! The pictures are a perfect touch on it too! :)
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
Stacey
This is so ironic that you posted this, because creating a chalkboard in our house is my project for this weekend! And I have an awesome dad to trim it out too! Only difference is I'm going to try magnetic primer out so we can use magnets on the chalkboard too! Love it!
ReplyDeleteum, this chalkboard looks way better than the one at your old house. bigger is better, right? and, your mom is what i aspire to be. i just need my own mitre saw!
ReplyDeleteyay! we love our chalk boards, too. not quite as classy as yours because we tape and paint right on the surfaces, but it works great for us! (we even have one on one side of a pocked door in our craft room.) I'm glad there was a perfect place in your new place for your beautiful message board. :)
ReplyDeleteCute! I painted the closet door in my dining room (don't ask....I don't know why my dining room has a closet)with chalkboard paint. I love it!
ReplyDeleteI have a couple chalkboards hanging around the house. I LOVE the picture garland idea at the top though. You don't NEED the mitre saw or nail gun either. I did this with a tool that helps you cut angles and nailed it in with a hammer and small counter sinker. I absolutely ADORE the blue wall color too. I'm new to your blog and just love you. You are such a sweet spirit. It's like reading words of someone I've known forever. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you posted that! I'm not even sure how I got to your blog the other day, but I'm sure glad I did. Love it! The kids want one in our house and I've just been researching the best way. Yours turned out great!!! Thanks!
ReplyDeletedude, you suck. how come you didn't do this like two months ago??? i made a giant chalkboard too...except I didn't think to sand/prime and mine's all bumpy from the brush marks. I suppose I could sand it and do another coat. ugh. guess i have a new project. i thought that maybe the chalkboard paint didn't go so smoothly and that's how it was supposed to be. oops.
ReplyDeletelove your "frame". gotta do that too.
in LA visiting fam. thought last night...hmmm...maybe I should call Julie???
I love it! the one we have now we just painted the chalkboard paint onto the walls in our kitchen but since my husband is a Marine when we move we have to paint over it, but with this we could make it kinda portable and take it with us to our next duty station
ReplyDeleteyou read my mind.
ReplyDeleteI wanted you to teach me how you did this as I have a huge PERFECT wall for this in my kitchen!
so thank you julie!
AND the #156 thing we have in common: our moms are awesome at everything. using power tools and such is one of them! fun! wish I took after my mom a little more :)
that is great. You made me remember that we have a giant chalkboard in the basement... I think I will have my husband bring it upstairs and put it in the kitchen. CUTE!
ReplyDeleteLove your chalkboard! I just painted the side of my pantry with magnetic chalkboard paint and we love it. I don't know why I waited so long!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for posting this! We are in the process of closing in our back porch area to make room for Baby #4. This new area is going to be home for all things crafty and school related. I was just telling my hubby last night how I wanted to put up a chalkboard like this. Ours will not be as big as yours but I am super excited about it. Have a great weekend!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea! I LOVE it. Well all but that 3 days of waiting torture part :)
ReplyDeleteI LOVE it!! I painted a chalk board road in my son's room 3 years ago... and I have been pondering a giant chalk board since!! I might have to just Do it!! Beautiful! fun fun!
ReplyDeleteJust Jenn~ www.seizingmyday.com
Looks GREAT! Love the added ding balls, starfish, and pics!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE that! So neat!! I would like to do something in my kitchen.
ReplyDeleteAwesome work! Everyone family needs a big chalkboard for doodling and notes on the go :)
ReplyDeleteLOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I have catalog drooled over the ones in ballard/pb. Only never could fork over my $300+ because I wanted to cool trim ballard only puts on their cork board. I am TOTaLLy doing this.. and the fringe balls are not optional :)
I did a project with chalkboard paint to pots for teacher's gifts as well as picture frames (found 1 & only 1 at Target years ago....never to be seen again & I needed more so I made em :)
The frames make great gifts because you can change the "message" when you feel the mood hit-cha. Just need to find flat front frames.
thanks for the tips!
~Ada in Coastal Cali
ps- your mom rocks. my dad taught me & it makes my hubby envious
Super cute and fun! I wish we had space for one :)
ReplyDeleteLOVE LOVE LOVE it! Thanks for sharing the how-to!
ReplyDeleteI'll never forget having to wait for my chalkboard wall to dry...argghhh! Now we've moved and I'll have to do it all over again as well! I love the pictures and trim; great touch!
ReplyDeleteHave a fabulous weekend!
Oh my word, I love this! I'm going to have to do this... someday. :)
ReplyDeletethank you for this! my daughter is now at the age where she LOVES chalk but she normally likes it around 7:15 PM or so when it's been too cold to go outside and play with it. Now I can put this in her room and we can have fun all year long! thank you so much!
ReplyDeletetotally LOVE this.....wish I didn't live in military housing and could glue it to the wall.
ReplyDeletethink it would stay if i just screwed it in???
melissa
love love lOVE IT!!!! And love the blue wall:) AND love the dingleballs! :)
ReplyDeletelove love lOVE IT!!!! And love the blue wall:) AND love the dingleballs! :)
ReplyDeletethis is fabulous! i saved this post for future reference in my reader.
ReplyDeletethank you for going 'step by step'. :) it looks great!
Fantastic!
ReplyDeleteWe don't have a wall suitable for this but we do have a pantry door that was begging for a coat of wonderful chalkboard paint (i did it right before the colored stuff came out, darn it!) I get sooooo many compliments on it! It's great! Chalkboard paint is my favorite!
love. love. love it!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE IT!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat color are your aqua walls? I love that color, since you just painted I thought maybe you'd still know the exact color and brand.
What a great and wonderful thing to have for your kids.
ReplyDeleteI am envious of the nail gun, toting mom! I would just like to have Someone toting a nail gun and also possessing the skill to create something so wonderful.
LOVE IT!
Love this idea....I have a can of chalkboard paint just waiting for a project like this. I also recently saw on a blog where an old dresser was completely painted with chalkboard paint and turned into craft storage that you can doodle on!
ReplyDeleteJulie!! You've done it again! LOVE LOVE LOVE this!! I can not wait until we are settled into our house in Kansas (which is going to be a long while because we plan to rent while we look for land and build - blah, blah, blah), but I SOOOOO want to do this. I want the kind of house that is a home and that is exactly what this is - HOME.
ReplyDeleteThe pompoms and pictures are a great addition!! You rock my friend!!
I do love the chalkboard... I have to think about where I could do this...and then oh the pressure to write cute things on it. hmmm.
ReplyDeleteI would so do this, if not for the fact that chalk makes me shudder from the depths of my soul. Not sure why, but I cannot stand the stuff. So I shall admire yours (greatly!) from afar!
ReplyDeleteI love this, and I love the pictures you hung at the top...too cute!
ReplyDeletelove it - super cute!
ReplyDeleteLoves. Wow. Thank you for sharing...now time to convince the husband that this is a MUST have in our home.
ReplyDeletexo
Too funny :)
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to let you know I made your tutu t-shirts/onesies for my nieces.
Here's a couple of links to my blog with pictures of them:
http://grahamcrakas.blogspot.com/2010/02/tutu-t-shirts.html
http://grahamcrakas.blogspot.com/2010/03/ec_09.html
Thank you so much!
They have loved them and I actually just finished making three more of them this weekend for the other three girls in the family :)
When I tore the carpet out of my daughter's room I painted the floor with chalkboard paint. The kids love it and now I want a ginormous chalkboard for myself :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for this tutorial. It's the next on my list of projects. Just wondering why you chose masonite? I had thought of using mdf or tile board. thanks!
ReplyDeleteI finally did it!!! I made a giant chalk board! on an old crib board! ;) great use of the old crib board... and then I was visiting another blog today... scrolling down and saw a reference to this post ... and I remembered commenting on this MONTHS ago!! ha ha! anyway... just wanted to say I finally made mine! It will be posted this week!! =)
ReplyDeleteI just went back to this post to see what particular brand of chalkboard paint you used, but you did not say. Would you mind sharing?!?
ReplyDeleteI think I want to turn our dining room wall into a giant chalkboard for homeschool this fall. Great tutorial!
ReplyDeleteI'm a renter so I'm gonna try to hang instead of glue. Thanks for the sanding tips! Looks awesome.
ReplyDelete