Chalkboard Fridge

Another project involving chalkboard paint. I know, you’re SHOCKED!! I’ll totally admit it, I’m hooked on this stuff. My family teases and says if they stand still long enough, I will paint them. Probably not too far-fetched, I’m afraid;). Have you tried it? The spray or the can – both are FANTASTIC. I got my trusty can out this weekend AGAIN and made this:

Cute! Started it Friday night after the kiddos went to bed and Paul left for a lacrosse game. Quiet house, you know I was gonna get into something, right?! I picked up some magnetic primer at Walmart last week:

That stuff is pretty cool! Read the directions carefully – it says to stir, and STIR you must! It’s very settled on the bottom, so it took quite a few minutes to get that sucker going. It’s very thin and watery at the top, but once you stir it, it gets more of a paint consistency. It also says to do a few thin coats rather than 2 thick ones, so that’s what I did. And it says to wait 30 minutes between coats. So I did. A fridge is way too important (and costly!) to not follow the directions, am I right?!  Can you imagine, “Sorry, hon, ruined the fridge…” So yes, I was a teensy bit scared starting this project! Most things I do are from yard sales or something, and the worst that could happen is I ruin a 50 cent cake stand, ya know?! You might be wondering why I bothered with the magnetic primer in the first place, since it was already a magnetized surface, but that’s so it remains that way after several coats of chalkboard paint. I used a foam roller (as I was told):

And after an hour and a half (drying time for 3 coats), it went from this:

to this:

So that was Friday night. It says to wait 4 hours until painting it with whatever paint you want (in my case, chalkboard paint), and I was not about to stay up until 1:30am – even I’m not that crazy! Ok, maybe I am, but not that particular night;). I got out my chalkboard paint the next day during naptime:

Man I love that stuff. I painted 2 or 3 light coats (I think 3, but they were very thin coats), letting them dry about a half hour or so in between coats. Then, being the good girl that I am, waited 24 hours like the can tells me to, before I wrote on it;). In the meantime, Hubs and I got to work on the molding. We measured the distance around the fridge to see how much we’d need, and he went to Lowe’s and picked up 2 large pieces of (already painted white) wood molding. We already had some downstairs from a previous project, so I’m not sure the exact amount of footage he bought.

Wish I had a picture of this next step, but I ran out to do the grocery shopping, and while the kids were napping, my lovely husband got out the miter saw and surprised me by cutting it to size. I have to say, I was tickled when I got home and he told me he had done it already – that’s love, right?! In my bizarre world, that beats a bouquet of flowers! What a weirdo I am…

So the pieces of molding looked like this:

with the help of this

He simply cut the pieces to the length of the side of the fridge, then did the corners, so it looks like a frame. I’m reeeeally bad at this lingo, I know. Sorry ’bout that. Still pretty knew at all this molding/miter saw business.

Then it was onto figuring out the best way to attach the molding. I figured, it’s a magnetic surface, so why not magnetic tape? Bought 2 of these rolls, and used every last inch:

You’ll need to double up the tape like this:

I placed one strip on it at first, and it didn’t hold well enough. Then you just have to stick those bad boys on the fridge and you’re done!

I love it! And it’s hard to see, but if you look at the middle picture, on the right wall, I made a chalkboard menu a few months back framed with the exact same molding. They sort of mirror one another, which I like. This is what it looks like:

AND my AWESOME black and white island that I just painted goes so well with it! Bonus! I think it’s super fun, and perfect for the kids to play, make grocery or to-do lists, or countdowns to the beach or Christmas or last day of school…(I LOOOVE me some countdowns!!). It really wasn’t hard, or expensive, which is always a good thing too! Don’t you just love it when a project is smooth sailing? Doesn’t happen too often, but it’s awesome when it does!