Fair Winds and Following Seas...: Sad Wall Shenanigans

And now for something completely different!

* First I totally have to apologize for being totally slack on the blogging thing. Yes I realize it's been over a month since the last entry... I've been busy ok?!*

We have a wall on our main floor that was just sad looking. It got even sadder when our washing machine hose (on the third floor) decided to pee itself and send water dripping down through the wall. Luckily we caught it an hour or so after it stopped and there was very minimal damage. The water, oddly enough, only went down between the drywall and the paint... weird right? So we peeled away the wet paint and let it thoroughly dry out and gave it a good spray with bleach and, again, let it dry.

Sad Wall has a tree on it?
After the peeled paint

Now what to do with the wall? Re-paint it? Boring! Nope! We decided to make a kick-ass Chalkboard wall!! Of course we could have just painted the wall with chalkboard paint and called it a day, but we wanted it to be magnetic so it took a bit of extra work.

We got some metal strapping, usually used for roofing. It came in a large roll, so we have plenty if anyone else wants to re-create our masterpiece. Make sure you don't get aluminum as that's not magnetic. It's 2 feet wide which was perfect for our little wall.

Steel sheeting after primer and
chalkboard paint

First we stretched it out in the garage to try and flatten it out so it wouldn't roll back up and crack the paint.

Next we used Rust-Oleum primer (in spray can form) for metals. Geoff did two coats of this.

After the primer was dry we used Rust-Oleum Chalkboard Spray-paint. It took 3 coats (a can and a half) to get a nice even finish. We let it dry for 24hrs before attaching it to the wall.

Strapping and shelves to keep things in
place while the adhesive dried.

To attach it to the wall we used a clear heavy duty construction adhesive. Used our caulking gun and then spread it out with a putty knife. We then stuck the painted metal to the wall and used wooden shelves and strapping hooked on our bathroom door and pantry to keep pressure on everything.

Geoff then used a cutting attachment for our battery powered multi-tool to cut out the light switch area and re-attach the light switches (remember to turn the power off!)

The painted steel and stained wood trim in
the garage.

Then we needed to make a statement. Since fancy moldings are so expensive we got a prefab door frame molding kit. We went with a dark walnut oil to give it a nice antique look. It was a new product for me called Watco Danish Oil. It's a combo of oil, stain and varnish to condition the wood but leaving it with a hard matte finish. I love it! Just make sure you wear gloves because it obviously stains.

The conditioned chalkboard.

After everything was dry and stuck in place, I conditioned the chalkboard. You need to do this so you don't get ghost images every time you write on it. Take a white piece of chalk and, on it's side, rub down the whole surface. Erase and you're good to go!

Now our pathetic little wall looks cool and we can leave messages for each other and make lists of all the things we always forget we need! TA-DA!! So much better! YAY!

YAY INDEED!

*as a side note: even if you don't want to do a magnetic chalkboard be aware that the best chalkboards are super smooth with no texture. Also, a lot of reviews said the magnetic paint doesn't work well and requires many, many coats. We found the spray paint was awesome and takes far less time than painting it on my hand. Just remember to paint in a well ventilated area!