5 Ways to Use Chalkboard Paint in Your Home

If you are moving and promised your kids the ultimate bedroom as a bribe to get them to enjoy moving, or if you are expecting your first child, or even if you just want a cool way to update your home with more kid-friendly features, one of the coolest trends that moving companies have been noticing, is homeowners using chalkboard paint to decorate their homes. Didn’t know that this was possible? Your local hardware or crafts store most likely carries chalkboard paint that you can use in your home, to create a chalkboard virtually anywhere!

If you are unaware of the scope of use for chalkboard paint, here are some great ideas that are sure to wow your kids and wow your house guests.

- Chalkboard Wall: You can easily create a chalkboard wall by coating a large, smooth piece of board like a reconstituted wood boards (such as MDF) with a few layers of chalkboard paint. Chalkboard walls are great for children of any age! Your smallest children can draw and doodle or learn their ABCs and 123s, while older children can use it for long division and learning cursive. - Kitchen Cabinets: Painting a kitchen cabinet or two with chalkboard paint can add warmth to a bright kitchen, it can keep your family on track with their calendars and to-do’s, it can also serve as a grocery list when you run out of something, and even as a weekly meal and recipe planner. - Chalkboard Hallway: If your children are at the age where you are afraid they will start coloring on the walls as they run through the house, consider transforming the walls of the hallways of your home into half walls of chalkboards. Use chalkboard paint to paint the bottom half of the hallways, so that your littlest of children don’t mess up the original walls. - Chalkboard Organization: If you have a lot of containers and can never figure out which one is filled with your books and which is filled with your kid’s toys, paint a small area of the front of the container with chalkboard paint in order to create a custom label space. - Mirrors and Picture Frames: You can easily turn mirrors and picture frames into decorative chalkboards to hang anywhere in your home.

When deciding to paint an area of your home with chalkboard paint, you will find that your local hardware store or crafts store only has either black or green chalkboard paint; however, you can easily make any color that you want, and you can thank Martha Stewart for this recipe: mix a cup of latex paint into the paint color of your choice and add two tablespoons of unsanded tile grout. It is recommended that if you are going to make your own chalkboard paint, you start mixing in small amounts, until you reach the right consistency.