Ever since I read that there was such a thing as chalkboard paint, I have wanted to paint something in my house with it. It sounded like the best idea ever. I read about a family who painted their entire dining room in chalkboard paint so that everyone who came over could draw all over. The problem was, I don't really have ver many walls in my dining room - it's full of doors and windows.
For some reason, it took like a year to occur to me that painting a chalkboard in my kitchen made perfect sense (I know, I'm slow sometimes).
The other day, during a pointless trip to Lowes looking for Christmas tree lights (what happened this year? everyone is out of lights!), I happened to think about the chalkboard paint.
After clearing it with Husband, armed with a paint roller and a night off work, I got to work.
Guess what? It was really easy. Definitely a project one can complete over the course of a day; it's kind of like laundry, something you do in the background mostly and pay attention for 10 minutes ever hour or so.
Chalkboard paint doesn't require priming. There is also magnetic pain! I didn't realize that until I was halfway through the task, of course, but I plan to paint a few spots on the chalkboard with it.
All you do is tape off the space you want to paint with painter tape, and paint. The paint dried very quickly and had surprisingly very little aroma. After it dries to the touch (about 45 minutes), paint another layer. I painted 3 layers until the area was nice and black.
If you don't want to paint right on the wall, you can purchase a piece of plywood and paint that instead, and then fasten it to the wall.
I left the nail holes in the wall, and just hung stuff right over the chalkboard.
If you want your chalk to be really vibrant, soak it in water for a few minutes before using. This also significantly decreases the amount of dust generated by using it. To clean the board, wash it first with a wet cloth (the soaking method will create a little more work to clean), and then go over it a second time with a dry cloth.
This project cost under $20 and took about 3 hours, but only about 45 minutes of active work . I already had painter's tape, so I didn't have to buy that. The paint is $13, a small roller/paint pan was $5, and that was that! Magnetic paint is closer a little over $20.
