Kitchen Makeover

I started with the idea that I wanted to make a giant chalkboard wall in my kitchen for when my son gets older. I have always enjoyed arts and crafts and I hope that I can share that with him.



I did a fair bit of browsing on pinterest for ideas and visited various stores checking out supplies. I looked at the option of painting a whiteboard wall, but thought that in those younger years, if my son happens to go to town on the cupboards/walls/floors that it will be an easy lesson to teach that we only draw on the one special wall without having to spend lots of time scrubbing marker off the walls.

So I decided to stick with the chalkboard paint. I didn't really want to have a big black wall in our kitchen, so I decided to buy Benjamin Moore Chalkboard Paint as it comes in any color. There are other tutorials online that offer using regular paint and adding non sanded grout as an additive to make your own chalkboard paint, but I didn't want the hassle of dealing with mixing and clumps.


I selected a dark blue paint for our feature wall, and a lighter blue for the rest of the walls in the kitchen. The couch that we have in our living room, in the adjoining space is similar to the darker blue so I coordinated with that when I brought home the paint chips to allow for a feeling of flow between the spaces.

My mother was coming out to help me with the painting so I got as much of the prep work done ahead of time during my sons nap times. I washed all the walls with a solution of Trisodium Phosphate (TSP) and then rinsed them clean. I used the blue painters tape, as it has a longer time that you can leave it on a surface without damaging the underlaying paint and woodwork. I taped off all the baseboards and cupboards but left the ceiling as I would use an angled brush to go along the roofline.

As I was painting a feature wall that was going to be a different color than the rest of the kitchen, and the walls met on an inside corner, i went ahead and painted with the lighter colored paint through the corner and onto both adjoining walls. I was sure to feather out the edges as I planned to leave this to dry before painting the rest. I did this so that when I painted the dark wall, i could run tape down the light wall to get a nice clean edge on the corner. I also painted along the baseboards and cupboards to cut down on the prep so that my mom and I could really get down to business when she arrived.

For those of you with children, I found that there were not too many fumes off this paint when painting the edges, as well as one wall. I kept my son in the other room and it was fine. The next day however when we were painting the rest of the kitchen I did have my husband take our son over to his grandparents for the day, and then I stayed there overnight. It was fine to return to the house the next morning.

Here are two sites that I found with helpful hints for painting.
10 Interior House Painting Tips
Painting Inside Corners

Here are my before and after pictures. I do plan on making new valences or curtains for the windows. I have found an idea here that I love that I think will go wonderfully, but it is going to take some time to get that done. Will post later on how that goes.

Click here to see what I have done wth the chalkboard wall so far.

If you have any questions, or I have missed anything, please leave me a comment and I will do my best to answer. I would also welcome leaving a link or picture of your completed project!