Chalkboard Freezer Tutorial
I just finished a project I've been wanting to do for a long time and it wasn't hard at all! Originally, we painted a chalkboard on our bathroom sliding door when we moved in to Lil Blue. I loved the idea of having a chalkboard. I wanted to write out our weekly meal plan on it, or write notes and grocery lists, or just have fun with drawings and designs. But shortly after we moved in we realized we had no other spot in the whole house to hang our mirror other than on that door....covering up the chalkboard. For the past year I've been looking at our house from every angle, trying to figure out if we could hang the mirror elsewhere or have a chalkboard somewhere else. But there is no other available wall space to hang anything from. So I turned to our refrigerator. What a conveniently flat surface to paint and write on!
Last week I gathered the supplies and got to work. I got chalkboard paint from Michaels (like this but a bigger bottle), grabbed a paintbrush, and a sanding block. I had to first take my pictures and magnets down and wipe the outside of the refrigerator clean. Then I had to pry off the Whirpool logo on the top and sand the glue off the surface. It really wasn't hard and didn't take too long to do. Once everything was smooth and clean, I started painting. I did three coats of black chalkboard paint, allowing hours in-between for drying time. After the third coat, I let it sit overnight before touching it again. The next day, I "primed" the chalkboard paint by rubbing a piece of chalk over the entire surface. That's it! Once it was done I could write and draw on it and put my magnets and photos back on.
When I read other tutorials online everyone said you would have to buy magnetic paint and do a coat over the chalkboard so you could still hang magnets. Magnetic paint isn't cheap so I decided to do the chalk first and see what happened. It's still magnetic so I don't have to do anything else!
I love it! I'm so excited to use it and have some fun with it. Pardon the angle of the photos. It isn't easy taking pictures of a large object when you have only a couple of feet to back up. :)
Has anyone had good luck using chalk board markers? Do they wipe off of chalkboard paint well?