Painting a Kitchen Chalkboard Door

Well, its about that time again for me to paint something with chalkboard paint.  I did have a good reason this time.  A while ago when our tile floor was being installed our kitchen door was removed and put outside until the tile was completed.  Not a big deal, except for it rained and the door was left  out in the elements.  We had a little water damage on the door but haven't had much time to address it.  Eventually, I would love to get a new door but we don't have time for all of that right now.  So a quick fix was needed- chalkboard paint.

My hope was that the paint plus anything that was written on the door would hide the damage and be less noticeable and from the above picture you can see that it really does the trick.

To paint the door I used a few supplies - paint, foam roller, an angled paintbrush, a small craft brush and after it dries you need chalk and a magic eraser.  The craft brush was huge for painting around the edges of the window so I didn't have to tape anything off - time saver.

I had a great helper for this project.  It did take 3 coats of paint to get a good finish on the door.  Once the paint was completely dry the next day it was ready to be seasoned.  If you want your chalkboards to have the right look and to not have "burned-in" writing on them, you need to prep the surface.  Basically, take the side of some chalk and cover the entire surface and then erase it all off.  The chalk gets into the porous surface and fills it all in.  I have found the best thing to use to erase the chalk is a magic eraser - use it dry not wet!

This part was a little time consuming and required almost a whole box of chalk...sidewalk chalk would have worked better - but thankfully I had such great help who thought this was so much fun.  It was also messy...this was quite a big surface to cover so chalk dust was everywhere.  

I can't find a good before shot when it was painted white but still, I like the original shot compared to the current one.

We are having so much fun with this door, I may not want to ever get rid of it.

I was worried that the black door would be too dark for our kitchen but I actually really love the contrast of it.  I think with it being a chalkboard surface it kind of helps keep it from being too drastic.  

It felt like a little risk when I first saw the black strokes of the paint going on but in the end I decided it was just paint and I could change it if I couldn't stand it.  But the little risk paid off and we are enjoying it!  Chalkboard paint saves the door.