Dinner Table Makeover: Chalkboard paint & Custom Bench Seats

So we have wanted and needed a solution to update our old garage-sale find table. My mother-in-law graciously bought us a new-to-us table several years back for about $100 (including the chairs). Our previous $50 garage-sale find was feeling cramped with our growing family, and the chairs were starting the process of falling apart. So Justin was inspired about 2 years ago by a blog post he read where the blogger painted his table with chalk-board paint. It sounded genius to us.

About a month or 2 ago a couple of the chairs to our $100 table started to break. So we knew it was past time to do something. We briefly thought of buying a new table, but then remembered that we were going to have to get a new set of bunkbeds because our girls were growing out of their toddler beds.

So here is our solution:

• have a friend make custom benches instead of chairs for our table.
• And finally paint the table with Chalkboard paint.

I’ve been super excited about a chalkboard table because I think it will make for great photos. I think I’d like to paint the old $50 (now in the craft room) table with white or pale robin egg blue chalkboard paint. That would make some awesome flat-lay photo backgrounds. I had thought of putting marble contact paper on the table out in the craft room, but contact paper is made from pvc and that is a toxic endocrine disruptor. With prolonged contact it has been shown to mess with your hormones. Your body detects it as a form of the female hormone estrogen. And that makes me want to not use it for areas that my children and I spend a good deal of time.

So, I finally tackled this super easy DIY. And I’m loving it already. It’s a great fit for our growing family, and I got to do something creative which makes me happy.

I didn’t have to sand my table top but I briefly went over it with a sander anyways. Just to tell Justin I did it. He and his father said you should always sand first. But that’s not really the case with chalkboard paint.

I also used the primer Justin bought- though I didn’t need to do that either. That’s one of the beauties of chalkboard paint. It goes on pretty much anything without a fuss. You just need to do multiple coats.

So Here’s what I did:

1. Wipe your tabletop clean. (15 seconds)
2. Sand it with a belt sander or even rough grit sand paper. (1 min.)
3. Wipe table clean. (20 seconds)
4. Paint tabletop with Primer. (10-15 min.)
5. Wash brush or roller and paint container. ( 5 min.)
6. Let 1st coat dry for 2 hours.
7. Paint table top with Chalkboard paint. (10 min.)
8. Let dry for 4 hours.
9. Paint a 2nd coat of Chalkboard paint. (10 min.)
10. Let dry over night.
11. Give it a 3rd coat if you feel you need to. (I didn’t).
12. After your last coat of paint you are supposed to wait 3 days and then draw all over the table with chalk and wipe it clean. After 3 days it’s ready for use.

Here it is again:

Now I’m thinking about re-staining the table legs and matching the benches to that. But it feels so good to have done something creative and practical, functional and fun. That’s a lot of adjectives, but it’s true. And the children seriously love this table all of the sudden.