Chalkboard in the Dining Room

Today the weather here was pretty cool, so I spent most of the day cleaning the house and doing projects inside. It rained a little on and off, and the air had a chill to it. My kids, of course, had no problem going outside. Last summer we bought a playset with swings, slides and monkey bars, so they love going outside to play. I can’t seem to convince my 3 year old to put on shoes though without me asking him to. He came in with sopping wet socks and wet clothes because he kept spilling his bubble wand about 52 times and then kept coming in to get a refill! Our bubble wands last about 3 seconds around our house.

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My project today was to finally do something with a chalkboard that I had bought at Home Sense over a year ago. It’s been sitting on the floor tucked behind my door in the laundry room, partly because I haven’t found a good spot to put it, and partly because I wasn’t sure I even liked the color of it anymore! It was a turquoise color, and I was just having second thoughts about even hanging it.

My plan going forward was to use it to write memory verses on for my kids. My son has memory verses for his playschool class each month that they work on. The teachers always send bible verses home in the newsletter for us to practice, but we don’t practice them nearly often enough. I think having a good repertoire of bible verses that you know off by heart is invaluable, so I decided it was time to start practicing them—and start using my chalkboard.

I had some leftover chalk paint from my coffee table project, so I cracked open the can, taped off my chalkboard, and painted it white with a paint brush that I had on hand. It took only a couple minutes to paint and then I waited a half hour to do the second coat. After it dried, I distressed the finish in a few areas just slightly with a sanding sponge. I didn’t want the blue color showing through too much. I put a nail in the wall and hung it by the string that was already attached to it.

I love that the chalkboard hangs above our high chair that all 4 of our children have sat in. Child number 4 uses the high chair now. It’s important to me that I teach my children to grow up to love Jesus and God’s Word, so I think having this chalkboard hung close to the table as a daily reminder of their bible verses is perfect for our family. I’m excited to see how good we get at memorizing these verses!

The current verse on the chalkboard says:

“Where your treasure is there your heart will be also.” ~Matthew 6:21.

I love this verse! We had spaghetti for supper tonight at the table and my kids wanted to practice the bible verses, so I guess my strategy of hanging it in close proximity to the table is working already!

The table you see in the pictures was our big furniture purchase when we moved into our new home. I had been searching stores and online for a dining table when we moved into our new home, but a table that was just the right style and size proved to be difficult. I LOVED this similar style farmhouse table, but our family needed something larger being a family of 6, since I wanted to be able to seat guests also. I happened to stop in at a local home decor store that was closing out, and found the perfect table. It is made of solid maple (and is very heavy!) and I am so happy with it! It has a distressed finish, which is perfect because I didn’t want it to show every little ding or scratch. It has two leaves that we can insert on each end, so we can seat up to 10 people comfortably. It came with the two upholstered chairs you see at each end of the table. I had been planning to purchase these dining chairs for the table ends, but the ones that came with our table are so comfortable, and the style really grew on me! We needed to get some more side chairs though to go with our table, and I had been desperately wanting these cross-backed chairs. Since we splurged a little on our table, we compensated the cost by buying our white side chairs at Ikea, which I actually love and they work just fine for our needs.