Here's our hallway and laundry doors beforehand. Back when we moved in, we painted these white. Sort of white. There was a mural to cover up, but we got tired of coat after coat of primer and paint. The top doors cover a storage area, the bottom doors cover the washer and dryer on one side, and the water heater/cleaning supply cabinet on the other. Quite handy for an old house I must say. I'm really thankful my washer is not in the basement. If we had a basement.
Bifold doors were my original wish so I could open it more easily to do laundry, until I found out that we'd have to pay for a custom fit. No thanks. And then I figured out (smart girl that I am) that I didn't have to store the laundry detergent in the right side cleaning cabinet, but I could just put it on the floor next to the washer instead (see in middle picture). Duh. Now I only have to open one door to do laundry. I can't count the times I swung both of those semi-heavy doors back and forth trying to get one load of laundry done. But again, at least it wasn't trekking down to a basement.
So we started talking about what to do to spice them up. Enter chalkboard paint. Originally we were going to paint the entire space of both bottom doors in chalkboard. Thankfully we got nervous that it would darken up the hallway before we tried it. So after much dreaming, 2 trips to Lowes (which is actually pretty good for us), and uber handy husband's skillz, we now have two chalkboards for Grayson with one side dueling as an easel for crayon drawing and (future) painting. We also decided the yellow of the hallway would be much better as the main background color, and I'm still wondering why we never did this part sooner.
I must point out and brag on uber handy husband's skillz : two perfect coats of chalkboard paint, custom made moudling cut to size per wife's requests, two spare curtain holder ends and a wooden dowel spray painted white for the paper roll holder, perfectly cut slits in the top and bottom moudling on the paper side to feed the paper and tear off the masterpieces in a straight line, and then, even though you can't see it, screws and blocks to hold the doors in place to keep them from swinging while little Picasso is at work (they're not on a track so they used to swing freely). Impresivo if you ask me.
I think when she gets a little older we might add a tray with supplies underneath the paper roll side like a real easel. But right now she would just take everything out and eat it. And whenever we get to painting, it will be the perfect time for me to finally get around to sewing oil cloth into some splat mats to protect the floor.
The improvement has been a big hit. She's very much in love with the chalk. She knows the color "blue", says "ga-ga" (?) with enthusiam in response to "would you like to color?", and when she is trying to decide on a color, she says "uhhhh". Apparently I taught her that one. Who knew I even said that when trying to make a decision.
