Make A Big Magnetic Chalkboard, step by step

It is Tuesday the 30th… so it is time to share this season’s (fully unofficial) Pinterest Challenge project (not sponsored by Pinterest or anyone else, simply dreamed up by Katie to make us stop pinning and start doing). Huzzah!

This time John and I tried our hand at making a large chunky-framed leaning mirror – except instead of it in fact being a mirror we made it into a giant chalkboard (since chalkboard paint is likely the most Pinterest-tastic material out there, haha).

By designing it like a large leaning mirror, it can move from room to room, and it can be a place where we write sweet notes, make lists, and enjoy Clara-scribble (we secured it to the wall with leaning mirror hardware so it is kid-safe – more on that method here).

As per the challenge rules, I took inspiration (or Pintspiration, har-har) from the projects that I linked up to in last Tuesday’s post and did my own spin. Here is a recap of them for ya:

1. Top left: this big arse chalkboard from here
2. Top right: this leaning easel board found here from this excellent journal
3. Bottom right: this door-chalkboard from here

And here is how we tackled our own version. The cool thing is that we were able to use a big board of plywood that we already had leftover from building in the fridge back in November of last year (yes, it was simply chilling in our basement since then). But before we got to the chalkboard paint application, we rolled on some magnetic paint (since we already had a quart of that from this project in our first house). Sorry this is not a full shot of the plywood board, but it is 68″ tall and 21″ wide if that helps.

After a four coats of magnetic paint (we hoped it to be fairly strong) it was time to add the chalkboard paint. So we grabbed this can from Home Depot for ten bucks and we rolled on two coats of it. We only applied it to the front side of the board, but you can see from this pic that we in fact had some lively with the back side too, but we will get to that in a second.

As for building this whole shebang, we set out to make it without the need of any fancy saws or tools. And because Home Depot is glad to cut plywood to size for you to make the board, and you can also get them to cut a few 1″ x 6″ boards to create the frame… this project calls for no cuts at home at all. Woot!

For our 68″ x 21″ piece of plywood we got two 29.5″ 1 x 6″ boards for the top and bottom of the frame, and two 63″ pieces for the sides. This allows for a little bit of overlap when the frame is assembled so the board looks as if it sits inside the frame (but truly rests behind it). The total height and width of the whole wrapped up project is 29.5″ wide by 74″ tall.

As for the stain, we went with our old go-to (leftover from a bunch of other projects) which is Minwax in Dark Walnut. We stained the wood before we assembled the frame because it seemed easier not to have to worry about getting stain on the chalkboard part of the board.

After the frame was all stained and dried, we simply used our Kreg Jig to attach them (but if you do not have one you could easily use metal brackets to hold them together from behind or simply try to screw them together from behind without a jig).

Bam. A dark walnut frame. Without a miter saw, angle calculations, or anything else that could get complicated.

Then we attached the chalkboard part to the frame from behind. And… surprise! John got a wild hair and painted the back in Citron (a leftover pot of BM paint that we had), simply because he said the bare beat-up back was bugging him. Sure, we will likely only see it once every few years when we carry it around the house (you know we like to move things around) but I enjoy that man for adding that secret plane of color simply because he knows it is there. Haha.

Oh and to be clear about how you attach the chalkboard part to the frame, you simply screw around the edge of the chalkboard from behind because it overlaps the frame slightly, so as long as your screws are long sufficient to go through the plywood and into the stained frame (without poking all the way through the front) you are golden. I think the length we used for those screws was an inch and a quarter.

Then we simply let it air out/cure for a while (chalkboard paint + stain are both stiiinky until they fully cure) and it was at last time to bring it up into the living room along the wall where we hoped to lean it. Then we simply secured it to keep it from tipping over (using the same dealio that we used here). Do not want it bonking the bean!

Next it was time to “condition” it by rubbing the side of a piece of chalk all over it and then wiping it all off. Boom. Conditioned.

Ta-daaaaa! I know in the pics it seems to be one of the only wood tones in the room, but the console behind the sofa is the same finish and we’d enjoy to build/repurpose a cabinet for the TV in the same rustic finish, so we think it’ll be more balanced and make more sense as the rest of the room comes together. One pleasant thing we did not even think about is that the color of the chalkboard paint ties into the sofa and the beams, so it sort of “marries” the wood console and the gray items in the room. Gotta enjoy a “bridge piece.”

I am sure the scribbles will constantly be changing (we have a lively Thanksgiving idea to implement when November rolls around) but for now I simply wrote a quote that I enjoy up on the top. It says “the happiest people do not have the best of everything, they simply make the best of everything.”

Then Clara woke up from her nap to see it hanging out in the living room and cautiously approached it. For a second she did not know what to think, but when we told her she got to draw on it and handed her a box of chalk…

… let us simply say she got fairly darn excited. Haha.

Here is a video of her in action for ya:

It must be a mom thing, but I totally think my kid’s scribbles are THE BEST. I mean, have you ever seen anything so striking?

So that is how it all went down. As for the money stuff, here is a little budget breakdown:

• $0 – leftover plywood board, leftover stain, leftover magnetic paint (a guess for buying all of these might be $45?)
• $10 – chalkboard paint from Home Depot
• $16 – four 1 x 6″ boards to make the frame
• Total: $26 (this project could potentially cost around 70 bucks if you do not have leftover materials)
  

Do not forget to check in on Katie, Carmel, and Sarah to see what awesomesauce projects they’ve whipped up (they’ll all be sharing theirs sometime today as well)!

And now here is the part where we pointer our homemade hats to you folks and invite you to share all of the lively Pinterest Challenge projects that you’ve tackled in the last week (right along with us, well at least virtually with us). If you’ve already blogged about it, simply:

1. click on the blue “Add Your Link” button with the odd cartoon head at the bottom of this post (you might have to do some scrolling, depending how many projects are brought in)
2. add a link to your specific journal post about your project in the url field (not your home page)
3. where it says “name” write a descriptive name for your project (ex: “Homemade Leaf Wreath”) as opposed to your actual name
4. we’d also enjoy if you could swiftly link back over to our project posts within your own (here is Katie’s, Carmel’s and Sarah’s) – it is also pleasant to link to your inspiration project on Pinterest as well as to directly link to the original project/site, simply so they get some enjoy too.

And if you’d rather simply link over to your project in the comment section, feel free to do that – or even add a link to a free photo sharing site like Flickr with your pics if you do not have a journal (remember to set the gallery to public so we can all see it). We are crazypants excited to see what you folks have been up to!