Framed Chalkboard in the Kitchen!

I am so excited about this post that I am using precious nap time to write it. Do you know how many other things I could do during nap time? Eat. Sleep. Fold laundry. Read. Scrub the floor. Pin things on Pinterest. Or I could do nothing, which I also love to do. But I'm too excited to do any of that - I have been dying to share something with y'all. No, I'm not pregnant again. (haha! You were thinking that, weren't you?) Actually, I'm just excited to show you how simple this project was. Seriously. E-A-S-Y. And inexpensive.

First, a little back story. We bought our house back in March (I think), and we have really taken our time to put things on the walls. I didn't want just anything put up - I wanted it to be about more than filling a space. I hate big, blank walls, by the way - they intimidate me. Do you hang a bunch of pictures? Do you try to find a big piece that looks important enough to take up so much room? Or do you just leave it blank and boring? I didn't want to do any of that. I wanted whatever we put on our walls to make it more "our home" than it was before. Cheesy, I know. I don't care.

Well, we had a large wall, right over our kitchen table. I can see it from the kitchen, where I spend a good bit of my day, so I knew I'd be seeing it a lot. I wanted it to be just right. So, when I was tossing around a few ideas with my husband (who happens to be the most capable handy man I know), he suggested framing an enormous chalkboard on the wall. He offered to build the frame, and paint the chalkboard inside of it. I loved the idea... don't you?!

So, since I'm a read-the-last-page-first kind of girl, I'll show you the final project before I give you the play-by-play.

Here's the wall before we did anything:

And here it is, once we were finished:

So here's what we did. Christopher went to Lowes and bough 3 8 ft sticks of casing. He brought them home, and he miter cut two sections 4 ft long and 2 sections 6 ft long. Here he is (isn't he handsome?!):

 Here's his set-up: 

With a level, he made sure each piece was straight (War Eagle, by the way!): 

And with a nail gun, he secured each piece to the wall. 

Then he caulked around all of the edges and each of the nail holes. After that, he painted the casing with a semigloss white paint.

While that dried, I went to Target - not to help with anything he was doing - but because both babies were sleeping, and like I said earlier, I like to take advantage of nap time. While I was gone, he rolled the chalkboard paint on the wall inside the casing. 

Later that day, after it had dried, he cut it in, and I was officially in love with the chalkboard. And with him, but not just because of the chalkboard. 

I love it. I use it as a weekly planner, a place for reminders, a place for favorite Bible verses -- just about anything! The total cost was about $35 for us - but we had some of the stuff on hand. Even if you bought it all, though, you'd still come out around $60, which isn't too shabby for a huge space like this! 

My favorite thing about it is that it really does make it more "our home" than it was before. My husband's hands built it, our family plans now cover it, and before long, my babies will scribble on it. My point is, it's going to facilitate and record memories, week by week. I guess this wall doesn't technically talk, but it will tell a story!