Projects Made Simple: Chalkboard Playroom Closet Doors


We have been contemplating a remodel of a large part of our home for months.  Since it has to be done in baby steps, we decided to start with the boys' bedroom and turn it into an official "playroom."  We will be making changes to it over the next few weeks to convert it from a sleeping/clothing area into a place to play and relax.


The first step was in conjunction with the Walmart Projects Made Simple Program.  If you're not familiar, it gives step-by-step guidance for completing various tasks around the home.  (Past projects have included repairing a wall or installing a towel bar.)  Walmart's site provides a video, shopping list, and basic instructions.  You can also find project sheets for many of these tasks in store.

For this task, we were asked to make a chalkboard surface, magnetic surface, or dry erase surface.  I went with the chalkboard surface, and I added a magnetic primer underneath.  Here are the before photos of the playroom doors that we would be remodeling.  (Ugly. 70's.)


Here are the doors after the remodel.  They are both magnetic AND the kids can use chalk to draw on them.  Overall, I'm pretty pleased.




How did we do it?  I'm not going to lie.  It was an involved process.  I've included a video for you to see how we exactly did it, but basically, we followed these steps:

1. Removed the doors.
2. Sanded and cleaned the doors.
3. Primed with 3-4 coats of the Rust-Oleum Magnetic Primer.
4. Painted with 2 coats of the Rust-Oleum Chalkboard Paint.
5. Reattached the doors.

Here is Walmart's video for how to do the magnetic primer:

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Here is Walmart's video for how to do the chalkboard paint:

Here is my video.  (Note, mine includes cat paws and loud geese, something Walmart's videos are lacking.  For real.)




Things I would have done differently included NOT painting in 110+ heat and doing a few more coats of the magnetic primer.  (I also would have made my paint layers thinner.)  I found that large and light magnets (like the Melissa and Doug wooden magnets) work best.  Also, while I used aluminum foil to line my paint tray, you would NOT want to do this for the magnetic primer.

Stay tuned for more updates to our playroom.  We have some fun things in store!  

 

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