Aimee Lou's Beauty Blog: Chalkboard Wall

- The Resurrection of Christ is a historical fact. When His enemies believed that they had destroyed Him, His real triumph began. To die to sin and to live with Christ is our way to victory and glorious resurrection. - New St. Joseph Daily Missal and Hymnal - Easter Sunday

Happy Easter!! What a beautiful time of the year!

Today's post is another little home/DIY post. I have been in serious redecorating mode lately. Just so ready to change things up around here. (Check out how I turned our plain pantry door into a fun accent piece here.) And after a LONG 2 weeks, my chalkboard wall is finally complete.

Isn't it super fun!! I'm no artist by any means, as you can see, but I had so much fun drawing on it.

So here's what we started with....

My husband was not too excited about this project as we had to sand away at our beautiful cabinets. But after some time and thought, he was cool with it. I got to sanding right away. I used a piece of 100 grit and 150 grit for the process. The block was there to help hold on to the sand paper.

I gave it one good round with the 100 grit, followed by 2 rounds with the 150 grit. Wiping it clean with a damp towel in between sanding. Very important to make sure no sanding debris is left around when you are ready to paint. So clean clean clean and let it dry naturally. You don't want any fuzzies hanging around either.

After it dried, I put my painters tape on areas I didn't want painted.

OH! And don't forget to cover and protect your surrounding areas ;))

To start the project, I made sure I had all the essentials. A good angled brush, a sponge roller, paint pans and the paint of course. I chose Valspar Chalkboard paint. I personally just trust the brand, but you can use whatever paint of your choice. And I went with the traditional black.

Also make sure to keep a damp cloth handy for those oopsies.

I started off by trimming with my angled brush and then filled in using the sponge roller.

That pic above is after one coat. The paint can says you can wait 1 hour in between coats, but being the busy body that I am, I was only able to do one coat per day. Which suited me just fine cause I wanted to make sure that paint was nice and dry before each coat. The paint can also suggest 2 - 3 coats as well as priming. I skipped priming after some deep discussions with Michael on if I would ever want to strip the paint off. So use your own judgement. I think it worked out fine without the primer for us. I did however use 4 coats of the paint.

This took me about 2 weeks mainly because, as mentioned before, I'm a busy body. I had other things to accomplish and attend so it just took me a little longer. But I finally finished it yesterday. Here's the finished look.....

Isn't she pretty!!

I waited over night before removing my painters tape too. Just to be on the safe side.

As I'm reading different blogs about how to go about doing this, everyone single one said you have to "chalk" or "condition" your board before use. One even said to wait 3 days before doing this, but I jumped right in. LOL!

To "chalk" or "condition" your board means to basically run the chalk all over it like so.......

This is what it will look like when you're done.......

Another blog said to wait a day to erase this. Once again, I jumped right in!

This method basically evens out your chalk paint and primes it to be ready for your creations. If you were to skip this step, you might notice that even after you erase your creations, you can still make them out or see them. Follow what I'm saying? So you definitely want to "chalk" or "condition" your board. I'm using Mr. Cleans Magic Eraser here to erase. I wouldn't suggest using it wet though. It has cleansers in it that may strip off your paint. Just a little FYI there. To give your board a good cleaning every now and then, I would suggest using a clean damp cloth. Simple as that.

Oh, and another FYI, this can get a bit messy.....