How To Paint A Chalkboard Wall

Give me a to-do list, and I take no greater pleasure than crossing things off. 

Case in point, the chalkboard wall.  I have a to-do list, and I’ve successfully crossed this one off.

Last Saturday, my poor unassuming husband was at his nephew’s baseball game being a fantastic uncle. 

Meanwhile, I was plotting.

I hopped in the car and I found myself at  Home Depot purchasing this:

Yep. I bought the black chalkboard paint for this wall in my kitchen:

This is how I did it:

First, I taped up the surrounding edges as best as I could.  This part takes a while, but it’s the most important part of painting.  If you tape well (keeping the tape flush with the wall & being sure it’s even with the corners), your finished product will be nice & neat. This was not easy taping our (eek!) popcorn ceilings (I hate popcorn ceilings). Be sure to lay down a tarp or an old towel.  Paint will splatter.  It just will. If it gets on your floor, it’s easy to clean, but who wants to clean when they don’t have to ?  Not this girl. It scrapes right off of the floor or with soap and water if you’re a messy painter (not that I would know ;)).

Give this stuff a good stir before you begin. 

Like when you paint any other wall, the cut (corners where walls meet) & trim (all perimeters of the wall) should be done first. 

This paint needs to be applied in really thin coats.  The directions on the package suggest using a super smooth roller.  Since I’m a brat that never follows directions, I used a good ol paintbrush. 

To keep the paint strokes smooth, I needed to channel my inner Daniel San by using long “paint the fence” strokes going up and down.

 

It looks weird as it dries, but you have got to have faith & just let it dry without panicking like I did.  Poor Mr. FSL came home to see his once happy pale green kitchen wall to be blotchy (as it dries) and black!  I felt like Lucy from “I Love Lucy”.

I let each coat dry for about 2 hours.  I painted 3 coats.  It dried to a pitch matte black.  It needed to cure for 3 days before anyone can draw on it.  This was complete torture for me.  I have ZERO patience. 

Stay tuned tomorrow for my first chalkboard mess art…