Sadly, this piece of artsy history had seen better days and since I knew I wanted it to last another few years for both A and E, When trying to decided on what color to paint it, I figured something bright and spunky would be the way to go (A thinks it looks like a Ninja Turtle and E is too young to care). Here are the before shots:
As you can see, it was in dire need of a revival. The first thing I did was clean all the wood surfaces and remove both the chalkboard and white board. It didn't really need any sanding, some with everything disassembled, it was time for paint! Here it is with just the frame painted:
I went with a black base where the chalk and paints and other art supplies would go because I figured it would be the easiest to clean up and would show the least amount of spills :) For the white board, it was really just a matter of putting some cleaning product on it and scrubbing until the baked on marker streaks were gone. On the chalkboard, I put on a fresh coat of chalkboard paint and then followed the rules for re-chalking (is that a word?): wipe down the surface and using the side of a chalk, rub it all over the surface. After letting it sit dry, I put a magnetic sticker in the middle for my kids to put magnets on since I white board wasn't magnetic. Here is the completed project:
I think all-in-all it turned out great and it has definitely seen some use in the limited time that we have had it... A loves to use it for painting projects :) Tell what you think in the comments and remember: even you can fake creativity!
