A friend of mine Adrian recently renovated his unit in Bondi and painted a blackboard wall in his kitchen. It is really effective and a great way to keep track of shopping lists, leave messages for the family etc. It really warms up the room and creates a feature of this corner of the kitchen.
I asked Adrian how he went about painting the wall and here are some of his tips – thanks Adrian!
Qu. How hard was it to paint the wall? [Adrian] At first I tried with a brush - big mistake, it was like working with glue. Because the wall is quite narrow I switched to a mini-roller with a short pile. This made the job more bearable and provided a much better finish.
Qu. Did you have to prepare the surface in any way?[Adrian] Not really, as it is a 'novelty' wall I'm not too concerned about the finish (plus it's matt black so imperfections are not reflected). I just painted directly over old acrylic paint that was washed down with sugar soap.
Qu. What brand of paint did you use? [Adrian] White Knight Paints
Qu. Any tips for others? [Adrian] The short piled roller, good ventilation and always allow to cover less than what the state of the coverage section of the directions.
Check out these other blackboard articles and blogposts:
Have a look at this post by Jennifer at madebygirl:
How about this dry erase writing surface from IdeaPaint
Other tips:
Make it magnetic – paint a magnetic primer underneath to make it a magnetic blackboard! http://www.abcstuff.com/magnetic_paint.php
What about a whiteboard? use IdeaPaint to create your own whiteboards – check out this article on notemaker’s blog: http://notemaker.com.au/products/idea-paint
Kids fun wall – read this article from real living to create a reversible activity board for kids: http://realliving.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=772405
Some suppliers in Australia:
