The Kitchen Hub | DIY Chalkboard Wall

“Organized” is not a word that springs to anyone’s mind when describing me in high school, and that was when I was only running my own life. Now, with two small children who have different classes and after-school activities, my husband’s job, sports and social activities, along with trying to start my own business, organization is my saviour!

When did life get so complicated? When I was a child, we wore one pair of shoes all day, period. Now there’s indoor and outdoor, winter and rain shoes. What to pack each day depends on weather and class schedule. And that requires its own schedule.

Now, classes are on a rotating schedule, (so the Monday classes don’t get the short end of the stick due to long weekends and PA days). So every time I get in the swing of things, and start remembering, Monday = Library, for one child and gym for the other, a PA day comes along and everything gets thrown for a loop again.

I grew up with 8 kids in my family and we did one sport per season. (If there was some award I could nominate my mother for I would). But now I don’t know any parent who doesn’t have their children signed up for at least three extracurricular activities. So the washing and sorting of equipment for different coordinating days is another hurdle. (that’s next on my very long DIY projects).

Anyhoo, where was I before I digressed. The motherboard. MY motherboard. We have a fairly small kitchen, where every space on the wall is pretty much taken up with cupboards. I needed an area to organize our lives, so that I can keep everything on track. The only space was in our  back hall leading down to the basement. With that in mind, I started looking around for ideas and it didn’t take long before I completely fell in love.

We were at my good friend Katy Dockrill’s house for dinner. Do you have any of those friends, who you are completely jealous of because they are just so creatively amazing? She’s an illustrator and her house is filled with these beautiful whimsical illustrations inspired by her life, her cat, and her daughter. It’s amazing, eclectic and lovely and I sigh with envy every time I go there. Anyway, there we were and she had this amazing chalkboard in her kitchen with a silhouette of her daughter’s head. I LOVED IT at first sight! So after asking permission to completely steal her idea, this is what I came up with. Not as great as hers, as you can never beat an original.

The only modification I made was to use magnetic chalkboard paint, so we can actually put up artwork and write messages on it.

Submitted by: Janet

How long does it take to make this project?
4 hours

How much did it cost me?
$40.00 chalkboard paint

What do you need?
Painters tape
Print out of image you want to put on wall
Pencil

Instructions

Tape off area that you want the chalkboard to be in. If you want to do a curved line like I did, just use lots of smaller pieces to create the curve. I drew it in pencil first and then taped it. To get the perfect curves, I traced the outside edge of one of my kitchen bowls.

Decide what kind of image you want reversed out of the chalkboard. Print it out in the desired size. Then on the reverse side (not printed side) colour in with the edge of your pencil all of the outside edges of your illustration, you can do this easily on a window so you can see the illustration through the paper. Should be thick and dark. Then tape the picture to the wall where you want it to appear (ink facing out, pencil marks you just made on the wall). Take a sharp pencil and trace the outside lines. This should make the pencil on the reverse side then stick to the wall indicating where to paint.

Do two coats and voila!