Chalk it Up To Teamwork

DISCLAIMER: No fathers were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Grab some popcorn, kids - this post's a long one!  Of course, given how many months it took for this project to evolve, it's no wonder...

When we first toured this house, I loved the kitchen and its easy access to both laundry facilities and a sizable pantry.  Both of these are behind closed doors, which were decorated in a frosted glass style that our real estate agent found adorable but I thought a little bit cheesy.  I understand wanting to obscure the view from the kitchen of the pantry and washer/dryer, but these doors seemed to me like a tremendous lost opportunity.  There is no free wall space in this kitchen save up around at the very top, abutting the ceiling.  This means that we have a nice place to hang decorative  plates and such, but no place to put up a calendar, or to leave notes for each other.  True, the refrigerator is magnetic and we have made use of it, but I wanted to turn the doors into something really useful yet decorative.

A while back, as I was thinking about what to do with the doors, I was also perusing many online blogs devoted to home decorating, and I happened upon the phenomenon of chalkboard paint.  Essentially, this paint allows you to turn a variety of surfaces into washable chalkboards.  This sounded like an interesting option for the doors, so I spent quite a while doing research into what other people had done in their homes.  I learned a few key things:

• Chalkboard paint comes in both a spray version and a roll-on version; the spray version is what I used to make my garden markers, even though I eventually decided to write on them with something permanent.  Incidentally, Benjamin Moore will now make chalkboard paint in any color you want.
• Writing with chalk is messy.  It leaves smudges and dust, and the chalk breaks.  More importantly, I can't write neatly with chalk.  The thirty-something me writes like the eight-year old me with chalk, and that's not good.
• Chalk Ink is a product that writes like a marker and works like chalk.  You know those signs in coffee shops (ie. Starbucks) with the menus that look handwritten, sort of like they were written with chalk, but are crisp and clean?  That's Chalk Ink.

So I'd found my solution, or so I thought.  I figured I'd just paint over the glass inserts in the doors with chalkboard paint.  But before I settled on that option, I decided to check with the folks at Rustoleum, from whom I'd purchased chalkboard spray paint, to see if this idea would work.  No such luck, they said.  They could only vouch for their product if it were used on a non-porous surface, and only if it were used with actual chalk.  Not the markers.  And the more research I did, the more people I found online who had tried chalkboard paint with the ink markers and ended up with writing that wouldn't wash off the new chalkboard no matter what.  Apparently the markers will also permanently mark an actual chalkboard too.  Then I was frustrated, until I kept digging online and found The Adventures of J-Man and MillerBug.  In the post I've linked,  Jeanette explains how she'd done to her refrigerator what I wanted to do to my doors.  Apparently there is a television show called "Good Luck Charlie," and one of the sets has a fridge that looks like this:

That was more or less the exact writing surface that I wanted, so I started looking at options for chalkboard vinyl.  I looked at a few different types, but kept coming back to the same brand Jeanette had used, Appliance Art.  They seemed reliable, and the reviews I found indicated that their product did indeed work as desired with Chalk Ink markers, meaning that it was actually washable.  It was then time to take the plunge - I bought a large roll of the vinyl and some markers on Amazon (both were cheaper from Amazon than from the manufacturers).  Incidentally, I have since discovered that some colors of Chalk Ink don't really wash off the vinyl with water as they claim, but they do come off easily with household cleaner.

Then Nick and I started planning, very slowly.  We eventually decided that the best thing to do would be to remove the molding on the inside of the doors and take out the glass pane.  We were thinking we'd swap it for a sheet of plywood onto which I had applied the vinyl.  However, neither of us was sure how exactly would be the best way to get the glass out without breaking it, and by this time my father was planning a visit, so Nick wisely suggested that we put the project on hold and seek his assistance.  We are both very glad that we did, as his help turned out to be invaluable!

When we explained to my father what it was that I wanted to do, he suggested that instead of swapping wood in for the glass, we just use the glass itself.  Any plywood sheet thin enough to fit inside the door, he pointed out, would bow in place and would not look good.   However, we all agreed that the glass would first have to come out to have the vinyl applied, rather than trying to cut the vinyl to the exact size and place it perfectly on an upright door.  The inner molding of the doors was held in place with staples.  Nick had originally contemplated trying to pry them out, but was concerned about breaking the glass, and he was hoping there was another approach that would be easier and less dangerous.  My father suggested another option that both worked very well and got Nick a nifty new tool: a handheld rotary Dremel tool.  This would give them the ability to cut through the staple with more precise control, so that there would be less risk of damaging the glass.  Worked like a charm!

We decided to start with the door to the laundry area, as we were not concerned about the animals having access to it.  The first door would take the longest, we reasoned, and once the pantry door is open, the pets all have to be shut away lest they gorge themselves on snacks.  The laundry closet poses no such threat.

 Once the staples had all been cut, Nick carefully pried out the inner molding.  Here you can see that molding is gone.  You can also see the scorch marks on the inside of the door left by the Dremel, but it's on the inside, and I can just paint over them eventually.  Unfortunately for us, the molding had also been carefully glued in place.  This meant that the whole thing was rather sturdy, but between drilling to get to the staples and prying it out, the molding came out in more than its original four pieces.  Thankfully, plain wooden molding is very cheap, so during one of their many trips to the hardware store Nick and my dad (my menfolk, as I like to call them) picked up more molding.  It wasn't a perfect match for that on the outside of the door, but to be honest, who cares?  Certainly not me.  Close enough's good enough for many things, including this particular detail.

Cutting the molding at the precise length and angles to make four pieces fit together proved rather tricky, and awoke the inner perfectionist in my father.  We had lots of fun working on this together in the garage, though we did decide that 9 PM after we'd each had a drink was probably not the best time to be measuring angles and working with power tools.  Eventually the molding fit and I primed and painted it.

Once the pieces were dry, it was time to tackle the glass.  We had already taken it out a couple of days before, which we could do with this door since, as mentioned, we were unconcerned about animals in the laundry closet.  We laid a rug down on the dining room table, covered it with newspaper, and laid the glass flat onto that.  I cleaned it carefully with isopropyl alcohol to remove any residual debris.  

With the glass ready, we had Nick hold the roll of vinyl taut at one end while my father and I carefully peeled off the back wrapper, a couple of inches at a time.  Dad used a credit card to slowly work the vinyl from the center of the glass out to the edges, carefully coaxing out the occasional small air bubble.  There were a couple of teeny-tiny bubbles that snuck in, but a pin took care of those.

I had deliberately purchased a roll of vinyl that was wider than the glass, although not by as much as I had originally anticipated.  This was so we would have extra length, and would not have to be overly-concerned about getting everything perfect on the margins.  Once the entirety of the glass was covered, we trimmed the edges with a box cutter and admired our work.  Then it was time to put the glass back into place.  Nick applied a few beads of silicone adhesive to the back of the glass to help our new molding sit tight, and then used his newly-acquired staple gun to secure the new molding with brads.  <insert obligatory "Brad who?" joke here>  The photo is of Nick using the staple gun, with my father looking on in the background.

That was it - the first chalkboard door done!  I was absolutely elated (and still am).  We were only able to get the first one completed while my father was in town, but Nick and I finished the pantry door today in similar fashion as the first.  Except that this time I was more of an active participant and less of a photographer.  I had already decided that the leftmost door was to be divided into a menu section and a shopping list section, while the right would be a calendar and a to-do list.  The calendar was the slightly tricky part, as I wanted the grid to be in permanent marker that would not wash off.  I planned my measurements out to maximize the width available to me - no point in having a calendar if the squares are so small you can't write in them.  I used a chalk ink marker and a yardstick, to mark off the grid, and traced over the lines that I wanted to be permanent with a paint marker.  

Then all I had to do was wipe away the chalk guideline ink marks to leave the grid behind.  There were a couple of spots where I accidentally went too far with the paint marker, but a black Sharpie hid them well enough.  The I filled in the info I wanted for the upcoming month with a variety of chalk ink markers, and voila!  Now I can change the calendar contents without having to redraw the calendar itself.

I also wanted to create nice-looking headers for the sections.  Originally I was going to use a computer printout in a fancy font along with tracing paper, but then I found a stencil at Michael's that did the trick nicely.  For titles, I was initially going to go with "menu", "shopping list" and "to-do list", but that seemed rather boring and unimaginative.  Given that I opted to use chalk ink and can wash it off later, I decided to title the sections in a more entertaining fashion.

Yes, I'm juvenile.  I know.  But you laughed, didn't you?

So at long last, both chalkboard doors are complete!  I need to do some painting on the insides of both the doors, but that is a minor detail.  They're done, and they're gorgeous!

Of course, this post would not be complete without the obligatory photo of my father supervising Nick at work.  The irony is that my dad did a ton of work on this trip and we had to practically force him to take days off from helping with projects - I ran to snap this photo because it was just about the only time he sat down to supervise all trip!  I am tremendously grateful to both my father and my husband for being so willing to create these chalkboard doors.  They figured out how to execute this project even when they weren't really sure if my idea was well-conceived in the first place, because it was something that was important to me and I couldn't do it myself.  You guys are the best - I love you!  Next time I will pick something less complicated....maybe.

Best.  Dad.  EVER.