Turn a Plain Door into a Chalkboard Door!

Do you have plain, flat doors in your house? What if I told you that you could turn them into something fun and fabulous? Like a chalkboard door! Let me show you how we recently turned our boring garage door into a chalkboard door for the whole family to enjoy!

Our garage door was one solid piece of primed (never got around to painting it) wood. Boring and ugly, and it had been like that for several years. Until this weekend, that is. I was so inspired by making my little chalkboard frame a few days ago, that I felt compelled to go bigger. So, I made our ugly garage door into a chalkboard door!

Here is what the door looked like before…

Step 1 – Painting the Door

I started out by painting the door white (Benjamin Moore’s White Dove) to match the rest of the doors and trim in the house. After that was done, I taped off a rectangular area of the door with painter’s tape. I then applied several coats of Rust-oleum chalkboard paint (I think it was four coats), waiting about an hour in between coats. I used a foam roller to achieve the smoothest finish possible.

Even though I wasn’t done, my daughter had to try out the chalkboard door as soon as the paint was dry. She is so excited about this door!

Step 2 – Framing the Chalkboard

To give it a more finished look, I picked up some basic chair rail at Lowe’s, and painted that the same white color as the door. Once the chalkboard paint was dry, I measured and cut the chair rail to size, and then installed it with my trusty nail gun. After some minor touch up (like, filling nail holes) the door was done!

I’m super happy with the way it turned out. The kids are already fighting over it. I guess that’s a sign you’ve created something good, right?

In our case the door was flat, so it was easy to paint on a simple chalkboard and put some trim around it. But, I’ve seen other people do this even with different door styles, like in these pictures below.

This was a really fun, and easy project that is perfect for those of us who love casual family living. It would be great for a kids room (“yes, honey, you can draw on the doors”). So, if you have plain doors in your home, consider turning one of them into a chalkboard door. You won’t regret it!

Here is another post you might enjoy with ideas for painting your interior doors. You can also check out how we painted the inside of our front door.