A while ago I posted a tutorial for making your own chalkboard paint. 
I finally got around to painting one of our dining room walls with the paint. Unlike the table that I painted in my last post, I did not sand the wall after painting. Well, I began to sand and then decided that it was a very, very bad idea. The sanding took off too much paint. So I touched up the wall and then skipped the sanding.
The great thing about making your own chalkboard paint is that you can make it whatever color you wish. Our chalkboard wall is the same color as the rest of the living and dining room (except for the accent wall). So if you were to visit our home you would not be able to tell that our wall was, in reality, a chalkboard unless we left the writing on it.
Having a whole wall as a chalkboard has been extremely useful:
- We use our chalkboard wall for our family schedule, listing each activity by day.
- I list the children’s school work or other responsibilities and they initial when they are done, so that if someone is playing outside I can look and immediately see if they have completed all their tasks for the day.
- I list assignments that they must do at some point during the week, but not necessarily on a certain day, that way they have the responsibility for scheduling themselves and making sure they get everything done, but they do not have the excuse of “forgetting”. (We do our poetry and nature journals this way.)
- We let the little ones “color” on the bottom part of the wall, but we instruct that they must ONLY use the chalk.
- We use the chalkboard for learning vocabulary words, diagramming sentences, math problems, illustrations, etc.
- I have also used it to jot down a phone number, grocery or to do list. Unlike a piece of paper, the wall doesn’t get lost or thrown away before it’s time.
I wondered in my last post about the chalkboard dust getting messy. Since our chalkboard wall is in the dining room, the floor is swept a few times each day already, so the dust has been a non-issue. Even if we weren’t sweeping so frequently I’m not sure that it would be problematic. Unless you have small children drawing a lot the dust is minimal.
I was also concerned that it would be difficult to keep the wall clean. Most of the time we simply wipe the chalk off with a dry cloth. If it needs more than that, a quick wipe with a damp cloth has done the trick. So neither of my concerns have been realized.
One caution: I have found that our blue chalk tends to leave a blue residue unless removed with a damp cloth. So we have been sticking with more neutral colors.
Here is our chalkboard wall shown with our contrast wall and it’s display of children’s art. This picture is included merely to tempt you to come back next week and read about my ingenious idea to artfully display our children’s art work without clogging up the fridge. Come on, with 9 children do you really think that I have enough space on the fridge for all of their masterpieces? I love, love, love this idea and love how beautiful the children’s work looks displayed on our wall in this fashion. Are you tempted?
Having a whole wall to use as a chalkboard works for me. You can read some of my other WFMW posts or head on over to We Are THAT Family for loads of other fun ideas.
Want to know more about homeschooling? You may be interested in reading my series on Why We Homeschool or stick around to read about how we homeschool 9 children, how we set up and organize our home for year round education and lots of curriculum and educational product reviews that I have planned for the up coming year.
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It looks GREAT! I have been wanting to do this for a long time. Can’t wait to give it a try!
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This is a great idea. The wall in my school room is brick, so it probably wouldn’t work, but I’m sure I will come up with a way to use this idea eventually.
~Erin
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Such a good idea!!! I may need to try this. And I am even more excited to hear about the art wall!!!
PS. Did you know you have won the giveaway on my blog???
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What a fabulous idea. We were planning on waiting until next summer to repaint the walls as our daughter but be done writing on them by then. Now we may do it sooner so we can use the chalkboard when school starts back up again
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So cool! I have been wanting to try a chalkboard wall
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Just curious as to how you avoid getting chalk drawings on all the rest of your walls?
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My sister and I were talking on the phone last night about a chalkboard wall or at least a segment of the wall painted with chalkboard paint. I love chalk much better than dry erase boards and markers. Chalk is easier to clean up and doesn’t leave ghostly writings as much after being erased.
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I am intrigued. I will be coming back to see your next great idea! Thanks!
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Kimberly, How do you display the art? Is it a corkboard wall?
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Your room looks fabulous! I love this idea and can’t wait to read about how you display the artwork.
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I love having the whole wall to write on! I always run out of room on my chalk board… so next time I paint the dinning room/class room… I’m doing a whole wall chalk board too! Thanks for sharing!
Looking forward to your other “wall” post!
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I love it! I am always seeing so many people using that cool paint for a variety of projects but a whole wall is just awe-inspiring!
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Heather,
I keep the children from using chalk on the other walls by controlling the chalk. They may use the chalk with permission, but it is a treat and not available whenever they wish.
Also, chalk is easy to remove, so when it happens and I’m relatively sure that it will, it won’t be as disastrous as if we were using a dry-erase board.
Smockity,
No it’s not cork board and you will simply have to come back next Wednesday to see how I display the art in my marvelous dining room.
Blessings,
Kimberly
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That’s cool enough to tweet about!
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I LOVE this idea!! Our walls are a weird, textured material . . . but if we ever move to a different house, I hope to have a chalkboard of some kind in my daughter’s room. But your idea – the whole wall and in the family area – is so smart. I love it!!
(I came over from WFMW.)
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I’ve been wanting to do a chalk board wall for the longest time but the cost of the paint kept stopping me. Now I have no excuse!
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Very cool!
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WOW!! This is such a great idea! I rent, so I really can’t do it…but I wish I could! I try to use the whiteboards you can buy in the stores, but they’re never big enough! Thanks for sharing this!!
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I love your website! I have a question about the amount of grout to use per gallon of paint. Thank you for all you do! I have four children and I will be homeschooling the 7 year old my oldest. I am scared and excited!
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Raising Olives Reply:
August 17th, 2009 at 7:55 am
Sharon,
There would be 2 cups of unsanded grout per gallon of paint. However a gallon of chalkboard paint goes will go a very long way.
Blessings as you begin your homeschool journey. We love, love, love homeschooling and are so blessed that this is the path the Lord led us on.
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Did you sand your wall before applying the chalkboard paint?
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
February 9th, 2010 at 7:32 am
No I didn’t sand the wall first. However, I think that would be a good thing to do. There is a natural texture simply from where the previous pain has been applied.
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I stumbled across your blog from Leah Killian’s blog (lifeaslou.blogsome.com). My husband is just about finished making our craft table and I would like the top to be a chalkboard. We will use this table to preschool, scrapbooking, painting, etc. Is the texture rough & gritty? Will it be beneficial to sand it down? Thanks!
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
February 23rd, 2010 at 7:52 am
I would suggest that you try painting the table with regular paint first and seeing how chalk works on it. I have a friend who writes on her walls all the time and she hasn’t used the chalkboard paint.
The texture is a little gritty and it is more difficult to clean.
If you try using chalk on your table w/o the chalkboard paint, I’d love to know how it works out for you!
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