Leaning Chalkboard

   Well my oldest three boys start back to school tomorrow and can not believe summer is over. I know they are excited to go back and see all their friends again! I have one who is starting his last year in Jr. High, one who is starting his first year in Jr. High and one that is starting his last year in Elementary. But next year our youngest will start Kindergarten and that will be a bucket full of emotions :(

   Now on to the leaning chalkboard....We used to have a big chalkboard wall upstairs when we moved in that I spruced up a bit from the previous owners by framing it with wood (picture below), but last year that all came down and was painted over. Since then I have been wanting to incorporate another one but knew I did not want it painted on the wall again. Well two good friends of mine came over the other night and one of them brought a chalkboard to do for her daughters first day at dance and it came out so cute! It got me thinking that I wanted something similar. So I went to Hobby Lobby and didn't like anything they had so I came up with the idea that I would make my own. I knew what I wanted, big and stained, but wanted to check out Pinterest anyway....There I found several other people who had already done one in the vision that I was going for. When you walk in my front door that wall is one of the first things you see. Before this there was my youngest sons table and chairs with the school stuff I have been teaching him. I didn't like how that was one of the first things you saw so all of that went in his bedroom.

 

 



I am very pleased with how it came out and you can make one too!

Supplies I used:

chalkboard paint
3 - 1x6x6
Kreg jig
1.25" pocket hole screws
4x8 sheet of lauan
stain
paint brush or roller
miter saw
small finishing nails
hammer

The completed size of this is 34"x79.75". Don't forget to take all precautions and build carefully.

For the lauan I had Lowes cut it at 70"x24"
2 - 1x6 @ 34"
2 - 1x6 @ 69"

Next you want to drill your pocket holes. For this frame I drilled them into the two short pieces. I did 3 on each end as pictured below.

Next you want to build your frame.

I forgot to take a picture of it stained before I started painting the chalkboard on the lauan but I'm sure you know what it would look like. Also because this was going to be leaning, I stained both sides of the frame. Now in this picture it's the backside of the frame that I have the lauan on to paint. It was way to hot outside to paint so this was the only way to do it. I put two coats of chalkboard paint on to insure you could not see the wood. Now, I used a paintbrush but would highly recommend using a small roller, you can see brush marks on mine.

Now what you want to do when it's dry is flip over the lauan and tack it in to place. I put a lot, like every 3 inches to make sure when I flipped it over there were no gaps between the 1x6 and lauan. Also since I have mine leaning I used regular black paint to paint the backside of the lauan. And there you go, a big leaning chalkboard! I plan on writing quotes and cute sayings on mine, also things to go with the different seasons or other events :)

Now I'm going to get things ready for the boys for their first day back to school!