Thrift Store Flip: Chalkboard

I’ve been wanting to do a chalkboard DIY for THE LONGEST and I knew this thrift store find be perfect for this simple chalkboard flip.

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My Hubby and I have always loved going to the thrift store and seeing what different types of treasures we’d find. Not all thrift stores are created equal but usually there is always a hidden gem in there if you look close enough.

Our sweet son turned 1 in July and we have been slowly but surely working to revamp his room into a more ‘kid friendly’ play room. 

Since we co-sleep, he was never in there anyway an it was utilized as more of a storage room than anything. 

I’ve been wanting to do a chalkboard DIY for THE LONGEST and when we came across this chalkboard in the thrift store, I knew it’d be perfect for this simple flip. 

As you can see, this chalkboard was pretty old and I wasn’t really feeling the alphabet boarder around it but it wasn’t something that could be peeled off.

Other than that, all this chalkboard needed was a little TLC and a new coat of chalkboard paint and it would be good to go!

While we love flipping our thrift store finds, we like to get them done in at least 2 days – 3 days max! I knew it would be impossible to hand paint the chalkboard paint so we decided to take a chance and use a spray paint chalkboard paint.

Before we sprayed the chalkboard paint on, we put painters tape on the edges of the frame because we THOUGHT it would prevent the chalkboard paint from bleeding through- WRONG!

We used the Black Chalkboard Aerosol Spray Paint by Krylon and it worked like a charm! It dries to the touch in 15mins so we did about 4 thin layers and let it dry for about an hr.  

I was pleasantly surprised with the coverage of this spray paint and I was so glad that the alphabet boarder was completely covered. 

Next, once the chalkboard paint had dried, we taped a couple of trash bags over it so that we could focus on painting the frame. As you can see, the painter’s tape was an EPIC fail but we just went with it. 

Since our son has a lot of gold in his room already (because I’m obsessed with it), we decided to paint the frame with Metallic Gold Spray Paint by Krylon.

I sprayed two coats of gold spray paint onto the frame and let it dry for an hour.

Then we used Rust-Oleum Top Coat to finish it off. 

Once that dried and we took the trash bags off, it seemed incomplete. Although the chalkboard looked great, my hubby had the idea to add another color to the frame in order to make it pop. 

We decided to use a blue spray paint that we used to make our Cookie Monster Cookie Jar for Judah’s 1st Birthday party.

We simply added painters tape to the sides of the frame and spray painted the bottom half of the frame blue. We also had to touch up some of the chalkboard paint.  

To finish it off, we used a couple of cabinet handles at the bottom of the as “chalk holders”.

Although it isn’t perfect, I’m so happy with how it turned out! I’m really glad we added the blue to the frame since we hung it below Judah’s golden letters!

This thrift store flip took about 2.5 days to complete and was relatively easy to do. Have any of you ever made your own chalkboard? If so, how did it turn out? Was it easier to make than you thought it would be?

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2 Comments

  1. Stephanie says:

    It came out so good! I love going to thrift stores. I have found many amazing things for so cheap.

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