Project #1 – Chalkboard Cupboards

Well, look at that! I have my first project for the house!

Rich and I both wanted to add an entire chalkboard wall in our kitchen here at wilderwolf, but as you can see below, our walls are textured. Darn!

Having experience with chalkboard walls, I decided that “painting it anyway” was a bad idea. When you have a textured wall, and you convert it into a chalkboard, a few things happen.

1: You almost NEVER use it.
2: It doesn’t erase fully when you do use it.

Talk about annoying. I’ve been thinking of ways around this issue that don’t involve resurfacing the walls (an expense I neither want or need), and when I was wandering around the kitchen yesterday morning, it hit me. The cabinets in this kitchen have framed (or recessed) doors! I can take two facing cabinets, buy some appropriately sized particle board, paint it with the chalkboard color I decide is best, and then use some wood glue to paste it onto the cupboard doors! Brilliant!

So that’s pretty much exactly what I did. I chose two facing cupboard doors (pic below) that stood on their own without changing the way the kitchen interacts with itself. These are the cupboards I keep alcohol in, and they face the fridge and the kitchen door, so I won’t have to walk around anything in order to get to whatever is written on the board. It could be a greeting for folks coming in from the backyard, or it could be a grocery list. Doesn’t really matter what ends up there, so long as it’s charming and gives the house some character!

Then I went to home depot and picked up chalkboard paint, particle board, wood glue, clamps, and a tiny roller. Cost a grand total of $25 and I’ll have a TON of chalkboard paint, wood glue, and clamps left when I’m finished.

I applied the chalkboard paint very thin, one coast at a time to allow it to dry more quickly and more evenly. The next photo is after one coat of paint.

I allowed it to dry for about 10 minutes between each coat, and I ended up deciding on applying 3 coats total. After they dried, I applied wood glue to the backs, inserted them into their cupboard frames, and laid them flat to dry. When they were finally dry, I screwed the cupboards back in their frames, and voila!

My first house project. DONE!