Chalkboard!

On Pinterest recently it seems that painting walls, cups and just random objects with chalkboard paint is the hip thing to be doing. So this long weekend, in between working and driving up to Launceston to visit my sister and friends, I decided to become part of the crowd. I bought myself some tape, chalkboard paint, and I got painting.

First I cleaned the wall with sugar soap, and taped it up.

Next, I prepared the paint tray. I used cling wrap to line the tray so as to save on clean up time. I would have used foil like in this picture but I had run out of it (another Pinterest find).

 Then the fun began!

Now, I haven't done much painting in my time so I was a little bit nervous. Thankfully, being black paint it seems to hide a lot of the imperfections. Plus, once it has chalk on it no-one will ever notice all my mistakes :).

After finishing the first coat we left the house because it smelt terribly. In the morning, before driving to Launceston, I added the second and last coat of paint.

Arrghh, bed hair!

After finishing the second coat, we left for the day and hoped that by the time we returned home the house would have aired sufficiently. It wasn't too bad on our return but there was still a lingering smell.

We then took the tape off the wall (and just to clarify, this is Daniel's hairy arm, not mine!).

It was finished... 

and time to be used. Here is a close up of our first drawing on our new chalkboard wall.

The chalk is being held in a spice tin, which is stuck to the wall with bluetack.

Here is Nicholas trying to get away from the wall as fast as possible.

 I am looking forward to using this wall more :).