Thrift Store Painting Transformed Into Kitchen Chalkboard

After seeing so many fun kitchen chalkboards all over Pinterest and the blogosphere, I decided I had to have one myself. I'm not a crafty person at all - not only do I lack artistic talent but I'm also very impatient when it comes to these kinds of things. But, despite these facts, I made up my mind that I was going to give this project a try. I started going in thrift and consignment stores, keeping an eye out for a big, nicely framed piece of art that I could transform into my chalkboard masterpiece. For weeks, my hunt proved fruitless. I could not find anything. You know how sometimes you don't really know exactly what you're looking for but you just know that when you see it you'll know? That's how this was for me.

Last week, my daughter and I stopped in a local thrift store that's fairly new to our area. And, there it was! Hanging way up on the wall, was a huge framed painting. For $22 it was ours!

Here I have it turned on it's side because that's how I'm going to hang it on my kitchen wall. As you can see, there's a cheesey lovely scene of a quaint little house in the woods next to a stream containing some ducks, swans, or some sort of water fowl.

After wiping it all down with a slightly damp cloth, I put a coat of primer on the entire thing.

Next, I spray painted the frame - a dark metallic gray. At this point, it was starting to get dark outside. I really should have waited until the next day to continue working. But, remember, I'm very impatient. I couldn't be bothered with taking time to properly set up a work area for painting. I mean, it was getting dark and I had to hurry! So, I just propped that bad-boy against the grill and started spraying. Turns out that this wasn't such a good idea because I ended up getting a wee little bit of spray paint on the driveway. Ooops! I then moved over to the yard and finished up.

Then, my project took a little hiatus. I was scared to do the actual chalkboard part. I'm not a very good painter and was afraid I would screw it up (remember, I'm not crafty). So, I came up with a pretty good (somewhat sneaky) plan. I placed my framed piece in the middle of the dining room floor on some newspapers under the guise that I was "getting ready" to apply the chalkboard paint. We are about to paint our dining room anyway and I knew my husband would be in and out of the area, prepping the walls. I casually mentioned how I hoped I didn't make a mess with the chalkboard paint. And, the next thing you know, my dear wonderful husband was painting my chalkboard for me! Of course, who am I kidding? He knows my tricks and knew that I really wanted him to do it all along. He gave it a good sanding and then applied two coats of the chalkboard paint.

Now, it's hanging in my kitchen where the kids are eagerly using it to countdown the days until Christmas. All together, I spent around $50 counting the framed painting and supplies. I used Valspar primer and chalkboard paint (just because that's what I found on the shelf at Lowe's). Wah-lah!