A couple years ago we had a list of home repairs we needed to accomplish. That list included refinishing our front doors, painting shutters, replacing trim, and repainting the exterior of our house. Most of those projects are above our comfort level to handle on our own. Thankfully, after some research, we hired someone that did a great job.
Below those larger items were miscellaneous small repairs around the inside and outside of our house. We enlisted my parents’ help for a few days and got a pretty good bit of them crossed off the list. Tom and I are blessed to have parents that time and time again offer their talents and time to help. Whether it’s building bike racks, patching holes in walls, or babysitting for a few hours, they’re all willing to help.
While Tom was out of town for a few days for work, my parents offered to come help with a few things. The week before they came I made my list of supplies for the tasks we hoped to accomplish and made a run for the supplies, although I think by the time it was said and done we collectively made two or three more trips to Home Depot.
Monday morning we started after breakfast with the project I was most excited about, a magnetic chalkboard wall. Originally, I wanted to buy a large chalkboard to hang on the small wall in our kitchen. My mom suggested instead to paint a section of the wall for the boys to play. And somewhere down the line that turned into painting the entire wall and adjoining section by the pantry. I’m really pleased with how it turned out, and the space has been used so much over the last couple years.
As my mom got started painting the magnetic primer, we got the little boys doing some “painting” of their own to occupy some time. They were exceptionally well behaved amongst the chaos of projects swirling around them for a few days. Arthur would pop in every now and again to observe the finer points of mixing paint. Thomas and Arthur also got lessons in how to find studs and were fascinated with the stud finder, applying it anywhere they could to see if it would light up.
We did three coats of this MAGNETIC PRIMER on the wall. In hindsight I wish we had done four. It holds most of the magnets they play with well. Our Favorites are THESE letter and number magnets and THESE dinosaur magnets. They’re not so bulky and stay on the wall well. But anything much heavier tends to slide off. To prevent magnet overload, I try to only get out one set or part of a set at a given time.
Once the primer was done, we added a couple coats of the CHALKBOARD PAINT and followed the directions on the can. After waiting three days the chalkboard was ready to use. The last step was conditioning the surface by rubbing the side of a piece of chalk over the surface and then erasing.
This has been such a fun and easy addition to our kitchen. We are all in the kitchen a ton throughout the day. The chalkboard wall provides a place to move all the magnets and keep them from cluttering up the fridge and helps clear the path of little people always right in front of the refrigerator door.
We also hung a metal pail to keep chalk on the side. If I’m being honest, I like it better when they play with the magnets instead of the chalk…less mess!
