Up-cycled Chalk/Bulletin Board

The other day George and I went to brunch in Old Town on a Sunday morning. We parked on the street and I noticed some "good miscellaneous" out on the curb for a Monday trash day. After brunch I spied a large picture frame leaning against a tree and decided to take a closer look. For reference, only fairly wealthy people can afford to live in that area, and I figure if you have a million dollar mortgage and a gorgeous federal style house, your trash may be my treasure. I loved the way the paint was peeling from the frame, and it was still in possession of its hanging wire in the rear but had no glass. I declared it to be "shabby chic" and insisted we take it with us, much to George's chagrin. I had been tossing around ideas for one corner of my kitchen since we moved in, I've looked at many shelves, coat racks, apron holders, etc and never settled on anything I liked. Recently I was thinking how cute and easy it would be to do a framed chalk board with the frame of my choosing by making my own chalk board with the specialized chalk board paint they sell now. With this project in mind, I promised to use the frame or put it in the trash at our house instead. Here is the frame I found:

You'll notice it's still got a little brown paper clinging to the back, and it definitely had some cobwebs clinging to the front. The first thing it did was take it out back and give it a good rub down with a rag, not particularly caring if I knocked more paint off. At this point, I realized that under the off-white paint there was gold paint- yay! I think it adds to the vintage, shabby chic feel, and lots of people have to paint twice and sand to fake that layered look. Observe: 

Next, I flipped it over and removed all the little bendy staple things that would normally be used to press the backing into a picture frame. I used regular pliers for this. I later reflected that maybe I could have left them to help hold my board in place, but they were rusty and some a little loose, so I'm not mad that I ditched them. 

There were a few areas where the paint was really flaking and/or the wood seemed a little rough, so I took a fine-grit sand paper and hand sanded most of the frame. Since the paint didn't flake evenly, I used the sand paper to help the flaking along in a few areas. 

After sanding I gave it another quick wipe-down to remove the dust. I decided that I wanted to preserve the paint I had and prevent further chipping, so I gave the whole frame a quick clear coat of Mod Podge Hard Coat, which is intended to be used on wood, furniture, etc. (sidebar: did you know there are like 8 kinds of Mod Podge, including outdoor and sparkle!?) 

Now we come to the chalk board portion of the project. I was debating what type of material I would paint with the chalk board paint right up until I went to Home Depot. I thought about just using one of those presentation cardboard things we used to use for school projects, but once I got to HD I saw that I could get hardboard for even cheaper. Hardboard is a thin board that's hard an smooth on one side and sort of fuzzy on the other. I had them cut it from the standard size to the size of the slot in the back of my frame. It was <$5 and I didn't have to get out a saw- love it! I also picked the spray paint type of chalk board paint because it was the smallest size it came in and I knew I wouldn't come close to using a pint of the stuff. At some point during my visit to Michael's to check on the cardboard option, I decided that I might not need a 36" wide chalkboard and that having a cork board to pin coupons and cards to would be perfect right next to my mail station in the kitchen. I bought a 4-pack of 12" x 12" dark-colored cork tiles for about $13-- $2 more than their more traditionally colored cork brethren, but definitely $2 more chic and a better match to my kitchen. 

My first step to create the chalk board was to put the hardboard on a drop cloth outside and spray on 2 layers of primer, per the package suggestion on the chalk board paint. After this had dried maybe half an hour, I put on 3 separate layers of chalk board paint, letting it dry around 10-15 minutes between coats (follow package directions on whatever you buy if you're trying this). Only do this outside, because the fumes were pretty serious, even in the great outdoors. Slow, smooth, constant motion is key with spray paint- that, and a strong arm for shaking the can beforehand. Whew!

I let the board dry on the drop cloth inside overnight once it was dry to the touch- you can't be too careful with paint transfer in your house. My next problem was how to affix the board into the frame in a sturdy way that would support the cork board and future bric-a-brac. I tried hot glue around the edge in round one, but Watson quickly pointed out the flaw in using such a brittle and easily removable glue by sitting on the board and popping it swiftly away from its frame. I can always count on my furry stress testers. Then it dawned on me that I should use wood glue to glue wood. Duh. Since the frame was partially suck down by the hot glue still, I left it in place and used the wood glue around the board's edges to bind it in place. We're still on the drop cloth for this step- no sense gluing all over your table or floor. You may have also noticed from the photos that the corners of the frame are gaping a bit, so I squeezed some wood glue into the gaps in the rear of the frame to help stabilize these joints. I let this all dry overnight. On one corner the glue did escape out of the front of the frame forming a rather un-aesthetic glob which I'll need to pick/chisel off eventually. This glue seems very stable, so I moved on to the cork board phase. 

I decided that I would use the whole 12" tile width since my frame is rather large. The space was also > 12" tall, so this meant that I could leave 1 tile intact and only cut 1 side of another tile to fit it inside the frame. I used a box cutter and long level as a straight edge for the cut, because my scissors just weren't, well, cutting it. The cork will crumble all over the place, so cut on a drop cloth or something else to catch the debris and protect your work surface.

cutting the cork along a straight edge

I fit the two tiles in place without gluing first and trimmed the second tile's edge a bit for a good fit. Then I put a liberal amount of wood glue on one side of the tile and stuck it to the hardboard. I did the same to the smaller cork piece and then put random heavy objects on the corners to make sure they stuck and wouldn't gap while the glue dried. I left it overnight on my drop cloth drying while weighed down. All that was left now was to hang it up! I centered it on my kitchen wall and used a 20 lb picture hook for good measure. And, voila! 

Including all the supplies- board, cork, paints, primer, and Mod Podge- I spent $35 - $40 on the whole project. I couldn't find a framed chalk board on Etsy the same size for less, and Pottery Barn is offering one basically the same size with less character for $99! So, I now have a place to display weekly dinner options, leave notes for George, and pin up memories along with the satisfaction of having "up-cycled" a vintage frame destined for destruction. This project would work in a variety of sizes and it's easy to find framed art at Goodwill for like $2 to buy for the frame and paint.