Bobby Socks Quilt Co.

Chalkboard How-To

We’re about 10 days to two weeks away from moving into our new house! While we wait for the house to be finished (we hope to have functioning bathrooms – and maybe a kitchen when we move in!), we have started getting our hands a little dirty ourselves. I had seen chalkboard walls in various magazines for a few years and planned to paint one in our new house. Then our son, Sam, who isn’t usually too into “decor”, said he’d like a chalkboard wall in his new room, followed by Martha, who thought she’d like one too. And then she saw the chalkboard walls on the Anthropologie site and decided her whole room should be a chalkboard! (We talked her down to three walls – and not the floor!)

Anthropologie's Chalkboard Walls

I did a little research on the web and got some good tips on how to paint a chalkboard wall, which I’ll share, along with pictures of Sam’s wall:

1) Tape off the area that you’re about to paint. Use painting tape and use a putty knife to press down the edges of the tape so there won’t be any bleeding. Prime the wall with grey primer. Use a foam roller because you want the smoothest finish. (Note: these seem to come only in a small size, so it takes a little while to roll the wall…)

Step #1 - Grey Primer

2) Paint the first coat of chalkboard paint (I used Rustoleum, but there are other brands). Keep using the foam roller!

Step #2 - 1st coat of Chalkboard Paint

3) Allow sufficient time between coats before painting again. I had enough paint to do three coats from one quart.

Step #3 - Paint subsequent coats

4) Wait three days. Then chalk the entire wall using the side of pieces of chalk. (I had to enlist my husband’s help here as I hurt my back and couldn’t do the ladder that day.)

Step #4 - Chalk the Entire Wall

5) Use a chalk brush to erase the chalk and the wall is ready! The chalk brush we had didn’t clean up the wall as much as I would have liked, so I will be looking for a better brush. Sam is going to draw his own art on the wall soon… Note that you can wash all of the chalk off of the wall, but you must “chalk” it again before drawing on it again.

Step #5 - Erase the chalk and you're ready to draw!

Martha’s three walls are done now too. She can’t wait to get her hands on the chalk, but she has to wait two more days! She’s been busy taking a modern art class and a pottery class at our local art museum this week, so she’ll have some new art to tape up in the chalk frames she plans to draw. (We didn’t need that wallpaper with all the frames after all!)