Using Chalkboard Paint on Heavily Textured Walls

I haven't officially shown y'all my home office yet because it's SOOOO close to being done. It just needs a couple of minor tweaks. And since I'm a not-so-secret perfectionist, I decided to keep my office all to myself until it was done. You've probably seen snippets of the room in the background of pictures of other projects, but I promise I'll give you fine folks a tour very soon.

In the meantime, I'll show you what I've been working on. I had two outstanding projects remaining before I could pronounce this room finished. The first was to recover my office chair (done!). The second task was to re-do my office chalkboards, which I have just completed.

The wall opposite my desk, functionally, wasn't doing much for the room. Rather than tell the non-functional wall to take a hike (which is also sort of impossible), I gave it a briefcase and a job... and that job is called chalkboard management! So, I measured out two 2' x 2' squares and two 2' x 3' rectangles, and painted them with chalkboard paint.

I framed the chalkboards with the cheapest 1" x 3"s money could buy, stained with one light coat of dark walnut stain. Why did I buy such cheap lumber? I really wanted an uneven and grainy stain, so that the frame would look like reclaimed -- maybe even burnt -- wood. Mission accomplished! Look at all of that rusticity going on, being all rustic and rustic-like.

I lived with these chalkboards for about three months, and used them to document my personal goals, to-do lists and inspiring quotes. There was just one problem...

...orange peel texture walls are VERY difficult to write on with chalk. I mean, seriously, have you ever tried writing on an orange? Like, on its person? It's a recipe for orange-y disaster. The texture on my walls was so heavy, I had to practically carve into the wall to make the chalk writing legible.

I had leftover wall liner from my framed wallpaper project, so I decided to take a lesson from...um, myself, and use my "wall spanx" to make my walls all that and a bag of chips. 

Wall liner is easy to install and makes your walls smooth like whipped butter (and butter makes everything better). Simply measure the area of wall you need to cover, and use scissors to cut the wall liner to size. You want to make sure you leave about 2-3 inches of excess paper on all sides.

Since the wall liner is white on both sides, mark the backside of the paper (also known as the wall-side of paper, commonly confused with the dark side of the force).

Next, I dusted off my wallpaper tools. Wall liner utilizes the same tools you would use for wallpaper.

• Water tray or bucket
• Wide brush, for smoothing the paper against the wall
• Seam roller (I didn't end up needing one for this particular project due to the size of my chalkboard squares)
• Sharp blade or scissors
• Old dish towel
• One of those triangular metal thingamajigs
• Paper towels, for cleaning up oopsies

You can purchase the wall liner I used by clicking here.

I also had an old beach towel on the floor to protect my carpet from drips.

I hung the wall liner all by myself, and I have to say my biggest challenge was keeping the dog from drinking out of my water tray. I ended up locking her out of the room.

I started laying down paper horizontally. Using a wide brush, I smoothed out the paper and made sure any air pockets were eliminated. I used that triangular metal thingamajig to push the paper into the edges and corners.

I used a sharp blade to trim off the excess.

Wash, rinse, repeat...three more times.

Check out how much smoother the wall liner is compared to the orange peel textured wall.

Smooth like a baby seal...

Now it's time to re-paint with chalkboard paint!

Just look at how smooth that is, compared to the wall!

And last but not least in the slightest....it's time to get organized and inspired!

It's so much easier to write on the chalkboard now! I am a happy girl, doing a happy dance in my happy house.

Cheers!