Chalkpaint a door, a success story

So you guys might remember last post where I went rambling on about the idea to paint the inside of our front door? Well right after that we got the paint and tape and everything needed. We used paint from the dutch HEMA, since that was about 80% cheaper compared to reknown paint brands like Histor. And after all, we like cheap don’t we? An additional advantage was that their products are often pretty good for their price so I was confident it would all work out well.

So, what if you would like to do the same!? Well, it’s not that hard.

First things first; Lock out all near and loose objects like cats. Especially cats since those animals like to ruin your business and they will not hesitate to press their paws against your freshly painted wall. Seriously, lock them up for the hour or two it takes the paint to dry. After taping the edges and windows (for the love of everything light on your doorpost and walls, do it!) make sure you put some newspapers on the floor too. Dripping and splashing is often INEVITABLE if you’re as enthusiastic as me.

What you want to do next is to get your boyfriend to work and sand the door down. Get him to work so hard, that the pictures you take of him become blurry!

Work, work, my evil minion!

Then clean the door and get rid of all the dust that came of while sanding. Hereby I would also like to nominate Kevin for the ‘most unflattering picture ever’-award. Thank you very much. Then again, I’m also cleaning with the speed of light as you can see.

Remember I said to take any near objects away from the paint-job? Yeah… we forgot the guitar and I managed to bump into it twice…

So now it’s time for the actual painting!!! Mix your paint well and start applying it! Don’t be hasty, a door doesn’t take to long so you’ll be done in a jiffy. You guys see the blocked window in the middle of our wall? Courtesy of our last landlord. Unfortunately he didn’t have the wits to figure out that when he added some fire-resistant stuff to the outside of our door, he should cut out a small square for our window. Or install a new door without a window.

Another one of Kevin’s flattering pictures…

So when you’re done painting the whole wall, you might want to check yourself for some paint drops before you sit down. Yeah, this was also on my other arm and on my pants… Yay for old clothes (you didn’t think I would wear those things for no reason at all, do you?).

So after you checked, sit down and enjoy your freshly painted wall. The label said it would dry within one hour so after 40 minutes (I might be a bit impatient) we applied a second coat.

So that’s it for this day. You might want to take a shower now because you’re kinda smudgy at this point (I certainly was). The paint had to set for about 24 hours before you could draw on it. This time I heeded the instructions.
Thanks to Katy from Greedy for colour, I knew I had to prime my wall first before I could use it. Priming means that you take a chalkstick, and you rub it over the paint so the whole board becomes covered in chalkdust. So I did. I primed and primed and primed…

and primed and primed and primed…

So after the whole door was covered. Next I wiped with a dry soft cloth everyting down so the dust would spread out a little bit.

I cannot try yet if the chalk can be erased better by a damp cloth because the label said not to use damp cloths in the first week. So I’ll try next week to see if it will get back to black! In the meantime, everyone visiting is welcome to leave a message on our door. Just a friendly sidenote, don’t mess up my grocery list or you’ll regret it!