Today, we are taking this utility closet door, which is just off of my kitchen, and we'll be transforming it into a beautiful blackboard calendar.
his door hides our HVAC system, and despite it being white, pretty, and well done, it's really unappealing, and honestly, it's in the middle of everything. I really don't like it. But it's because of this location that I think a blackboard is the perfect solution.
We're not only going to up the appeal of the door and give it a purpose, but we're also going to add a lot of functionality here. This is going to be a place where I can keep track of groceries that I need, appointments that are coming up, to-do lists, all that kind of stuff.
This DIY is quick, easy, and versatile. So whether you have a door like me that needs disguising, or if you have a regular wall or board you want to turn into a blackboard, or maybe you're just here for a visually pleasing DIY, just stick around and we'll get right into it!
Prep
I've decided to use this Rust-Oleum chalkboard paint in the color black to make my blackboard. I picked this up at my local big box store, but there are a ton of products out there.
Did you know you can also use regular chalk paint that you would use on furniture to make a blackboard too? There are tons of color combinations and products that are suitable for this DIY, but if you're interested in using this one specifically, you can buy it here.
Regardless of your product, the first step is going to be the same, which is we need to prep our surface. I already gave this door a quick clean a couple of weeks ago, so I'm going to move right into sanding.
I'm going to take a 120 grit sandpaper and put that on top of my sanding sponge and go across the entire surface of this door. My door has a semi-gloss paint on it right now, which is not going to be good enough to adhere the chalkboard paint to it, so we need to create some texture and some grooves so that paint sticks really well.
Once I'm done with sanding, I'm going to take a damp cloth and wipe away all the dust that I've just created. And then once that's dry, I'm going to grab some painter's tape and tape around all the edges on the inside of the door, which is where I want the line for my blackboard to be.
As you probably know, if you've seen any of my furniture flipping videos, sanding, taping, and all this preparation work is really important to getting a good finish. So take the time and don't skip this step.
Paint the Blackboard
I'm going to be using a small 4-inch roller made for cabinetry. This is a foamy roller that's going to give me the most even smooth texture possible. I know with chalk paint, sometimes we want to create a textured surface, but this is not the case. We want this as smooth as possible so that when we're writing with chalk, our words and our letters come out as clean and crisp as possible.
The recoat time for this product is four hours, so I'm going to do three coats over about two days, waiting an appropriate amount of time between each and making sure that I've smoothed this paint down as well as I can.
And look at that, we're honestly well on our way. I told you this DIY is super easy. This could be your stopping point, but for me, I want to take this a bit further. I know I absolutely want to use this blackboard as a calendar, and I also want to add some decorations to it too. I want this to be a nice appealing thing to look at. So, I'm actually going to head over to my computer and bust out my Cricut.
Design Custom Stencils
I'm sure all of you know what a Cricut is, but just in case you've been hiding under a rock the past few years, the Cricut is a really awesome paper cutter that you can find at Michael's and any other craft store, and it's capable of cutting vinyl and other types of materials. I'm going to use this to make some custom stencils to apply the graphics I want to my blackboard permanently.
Now, this is not a Cricut tutorial. If you are interested in learning more, checkout this channel or this channel that do a really great job explaining the system. I will, however, give you a nice high-level overview of what I'm going to do.
To start, I always open a new project and insert a rectangle in the shape of whatever I'm trying to adhere my stencil to. So in this case, that's the door of my closet. I took a measuring tape, measured it exactly, and then inserted a rectangle with the same dimensions as my door. This is going to give me the surface that I need to plan out all of my graphics.
I then popped over to one of my favorite websites, Creative Market, and bought this collection of hand-drawn frames and borders. And this is a bunch of PNGs and other graphic files that I can use in projects like this. This step is totally optional. Obviously, you can be creating your own graphics or just using things you find on the internet. But if you're like me, I just really love pretty designed things, and over the years, I've kind of created a collection of these different things that I've just purchased for a few dollars here and there, so this is a great addition to my collection.
Once I've got that downloaded, I'm going to grab my favorite frame from there and bring it into the Cricut app. Now, in Cricut, I can drag and resize and reposition this until I have it just right.
I'm also applying a bit of strategy here. The largest print or cut size that I can do on a Cricut is 23 and a half inches by 11 and a half inches. So I'm going to set this to that exact length and size so I can get this all done in one mat.
The calendar I'm actually going to make by myself just on my desktop. I'm going to create a simple table in Excel, and I'm going to make the titles and the sections all in the right size just as I want them, the borders, all that kind of stuff. This is a perfectly reasonable alternative to buying graphics. It's easy to make them yourself as well. For a calendar, you always want to include six rows that will get you through every month of the year no matter what year it is.
Once I'm done with that, I'll export them to images and pull them into Cricut as well and reposition them until I have everything just right. Alright, so I have my entire blackboard planned out here. I'm really liking the way it's looking, and I've double-checked all these sizes on my elements, and they're all within one print mat, which is super awesome.
Now it's time to pull out the Cricut and get started with cutting these out.
Cutting the Stencils
I am using the Cricut brand of stencil vinyl. There are, of course, a number of alternatives you can get either in the store or on Amazon. And for me, one roll of these will do two full mats.
I'm going to cut it perfectly in the middle and then apply these onto the mat. I also really like to use this rolling wheel, called a brayer, I think it's the best tool for setting these down really flat. So to get it on the mat, I'm starting in the middle, working my way out to make sure everything is nice and square.
Then I'm going to load this up onto my Cricut, slide in the mat, and hit go.
Once the machine is all done cutting, you do have to go through and take out all the pieces where you want your paint to be applied, so the places where you want your stencil to show up on your blackboard. And this is done with these little tools called weeders. This whole process is called weeding, so I'm going to take some time to do that.
An important part that I found for stenciling is you want to create almost bridges in your work so that when you pull the stencil off the mat and apply it onto the wall, everything's not flopping around in place, and it all stays together as one sheet. Especially with my calendar, I'm going to have all these sections, these squares in the middle, I want it all to stay together when I transfer it to the wall.
So what I typically do is I use the parts that I've weeded out and I cut them up into little ridges or connective pieces that I can apply to all these different areas and hold things in place. I know people also use transfer tape, which is like another layer of vinyl that you can put on top of this. That's totally an alternative. I do it this way. Not sure if I'm the only one, but the point is make sure your piece will stick all together in one sheet when you lift it off this mat.
Painting the Stencils
Alright, we are in the home stretch here. I am going to start peeling the backing off these stencils one by one and lining them up onto my blackboard. Now, I did this just by eye. I trust myself, but if you don't, that's totally okay.
Just grab a measuring tape and mark out level and square and centered onto your board, and it is easy to readjust these things if you put it in the wrong spot, and you step back and you're not quite sure, just peel it off and start again. It's much easier to correct that mistake now.
Once I have this in the right position again, I'm going to smooth it from the center, working out first with my hands and then again with the brayer tool. Then once this is all smoothed down, I'm just going to go through and remove all of my little bridges and connective pieces that I used to transfer the stencil over and smooth out everything, adjust it all so I have it exactly how I want.
Alright, our stencil is in place, and we are ready to paint. I'm going to be using a white colored regular artist's acrylic paint. And I chose this because I know it's going to stick well, and it's not going to wash off when I clean my blackboard and clean the chalk off. It'll stay perfectly in place. It's not water-soluble in that way.
I'm also using a regular artist's paintbrush, but another alternative here would be a foam brush that you can use to stipple. The key is that you don't want to be pushing paint underneath of the stencil.
Right before I paint, I'm going to go through and make sure everything is pressed down really, really well. And then I like to apply a very easy first layer just to kind of create the meeting between the paint and the stencil and the blackboard and kind of set the boundaries almost. So half stippling, half brushing, trying to work the paint in but not under the stencil. And then once this is set, I'm coming through again with the paint with a larger volume to create that opacity.
When you're painting a stencil like this, you definitely want to do a wet pull, which means I'm going to pull this stencil off right away before the paint dries. This is because if I let it all dry, there's a big risk of cracking and chipping when I pull the stencil off. So I will give this just a minute or two for the paint to gel up so it's not going to drip anywhere, and then I'm going to start on one corner and just pull the stencil off in a clean sweep.
The only exception are these small little blockers inside letters like A and O. These guys, I find that if I go in there and I try to dig them out, I'm probably just going to smear all the paint around and make a much bigger mess than the risk of cracking later when the paint is dried. So I prefer to leave those and pull them off later on.
Don't worry if you see any paint where it's not supposed to be or any blank spots, it's really easy to clean up by hand later. This is going to happen, there's going to be mistakes and drips and that kind of stuff. Clean up what you can in the meantime, but don't worry about that for now.
Final Touches
After a couple days, I know that our blackboard paint is dried really well, as well as our stenciled white paint has dried and had time to cure, so we are ready to start using this chalkboard, which is super exciting.
The manufacturer does recommend that you take a piece of chalk and prepare the chalkboard by applying chalk everywhere and then wiping it off. This is kind of like a nice dusting coat to break it in, so that's what I did, put it on everywhere, and then I grabbed just a paper towel to wipe it back. This also helps tone down the super black color, which is good too.
The last thing we did, and this is optional, was to add a knob to the very top of this door. This did not have any kind of access beforehand, and you had to stick your finger into the little corner and pry it open, so we definitely wanted to add a knob. We chose one that would be discrete, and we put it really high up in the top left-hand corner, so it would be out of the way, you wouldn't hit yourself on it, and you really can't notice it if you're not looking.
After that, our calendar is ready to be filled. I grabbed a little pencil canister off Amazon that applies with just a sticker to the wall. This is a perfect spot to store all of my chalk pieces, markers, pencils, that kind of thing.
My friend recommended these chalkboard markers to me. They are a different type of substance than chalk. I find they write very cleanly, but depending on the paint you've chosen to use, these might be really hard to get off of your blackboard. They prefer more of a glossy, impermeable surface than anything that's absorbent, so that's one option you might want to explore. I've also seen some really cool chalk pencils, which are almost like chalk or white graphite in the pencil shape, so that'll give you a finer line. The world is your oyster here, so head on over to the internet and find something you like.
The Reveal
Let me know what you think of this DIY! I told you this was super quick, super easy, and totally versatile and functional.
I'm also super excited about the idea of maybe changing out the trim on this blackboard into maybe a wood color and then adding some picture frames and images around it to almost create a gallery wall that this blackboard is a part of. I think that's going to add to the disguise here and make it seem even more like a decoration and not some door that I've just covered up.
Let me know what you think about that idea. If you saw anything you thought I could have done better, please let me know that as well. I'm always open to improvement.
I'll see you in the next one!