Diy Chalkboard with Tray

In my previous post about the laundry room mini-makeover, you noticed the chalkboard, oh and the painted tray with the Greek Key design was also in this little room, you can see a peek of the tray to the left side of the top picture.

The new chalkboard replaced the old corkboard I had installed there a year ago. I liked it, especially the two mirrors (the instructions on how to build the mirror's frame are right HERE), but for my liking, it was too small for that wall, that's why I painted the saying and used the wall decals.

 
Lately, what bothered me the most was the number of papers the corkboard was holding. My dear husband was pinning all of his car coupon discounts, letters, and magazine pages, it was right there.

It was an eye sore.

When the bookcases in my bedroom were built, a long piece of baseboard was ripped off and it was lingering in the garage ever since. Well, it was the perfect piece for the new board's frame.

The corners were cut at a 45° angle.  Even though it was a very long piece of baseboard it was not long enough to complete the frame :(  Out from the scrap pile, other pieces of molding came to the rescue ;) though they were not a perfect match, later on, you'll see.

It wasn't a straight piece of molding or baseboard, it was cut making sure the mirror fit in nicely, leaving some extra space on both sides.

It was important for me to have a tray to hold the chalk and the dust that the chalkboard generates, so using 1 x 2  stock material a shelf was cut to the dimensions of the inside width of the frame. Pieces of 1/2" x 3/4" material were fastened with brad nails to the front and sides of the tray.

It was now time to give all these wooden pieces a good coat of paint.  

ASCP Duck Egg Blue was used.

The wall was painted with two coats of chalkboard paint. -When taking your measurements for the area to be painted, go over the inner lines of your frame ;)

Once the paint was dried, the frame was nailed in place.  I never use glue to attach this kind of molding to the wall.  I like to change things around and if I use glue on this, later on when I change it again, I will be ripping off the Sheetrock with it!

The studs on the wall had to be located to install the tray.  Their locations were transferred to the bottom side of the tray, then, using the Kreg Jig, pocket holes were drilled.

It was installed the same way as the dining room shelves or ledges right here.

The mirrors were hung on the wall.

This was my first time trying to do a "nice" design on a chalkboard and let me tell you, I have a long way to learn. It even came out with a spelling mistake :/ I haven't noticed it until Faith commented about it, Ooooops, sorry about that! Since the pictures were already taken, a simple mini correction to the pic was done ;)  I wish I could install a spell checker on this one :)

Did you notice the mismatched piece of molding at the right bottom side of the frame?  I love how painting kind of hides those imperfections ;)


Some related links you might want to check:

Laundry Room Final Reveal

Tongue and Groove Paneling Wall

DIY Small Laundry Shelf

Creating vertical storage space

DIY Wine Rack

Laundry Room New Brighter Look