It’s Tuesday the 30th, which means it’s time to share this season’s completely unofficial Pinterest Challenge project (not sponsored by Pinterest or anyone else—just a fun idea dreamed up by Katie to get us to stop pinning and start doing). Huzzah!
This round, John and I built a large, chunky-framed leaning piece that looks like a mirror but functions as a giant chalkboard. Chalkboard paint is about as Pinterest-tastic as it gets, so this felt like the perfect twist.
Designing it as a leaning “mirror” makes it portable: it can move from room to room, serve as a place for notes and lists, and survive Clara’s artistic sessions. We secured it to the wall with leaning-mirror hardware so it’s stable and kid-safe.
For inspiration, I pulled ideas from a few projects I’d pinned earlier. The three big influences were a massive chalkboard, a leaning easel-style board, and a door-sized chalkboard—then I combined elements from each to create our version.
The core of the project was a leftover sheet of plywood we had in the basement from another build. It’s 68″ tall and 21″ wide—perfect for a tall, narrow leaning board. Before applying chalkboard paint, we rolled on several coats of magnetic paint so the surface could double as a magnet board. We had a quart of magnetic paint left over from a previous project, which saved some cost and made the piece more useful.
After four coats of magnetic paint to make the surface reliably magnetic, we applied two coats of chalkboard paint we picked up from Home Depot. We painted only the front face, though John decided to paint the back in a cheerful Citron color just for fun—an unexpected pop of color that we’ll probably only see a few times when we move the piece.
One of the nicest things about this project is that it requires no fancy saws if you use the store’s cutting service. Home Depot will cut plywood to size and rip 1x6s to length. For our 68″ x 21″ plywood panel we had the store cut frame pieces: two 29.5″ boards for the top and bottom and two 63″ boards for the sides. The overlap from those dimensions creates a frame that looks like the board sits inside it, while the board actually rests just behind the face of the frame. The finished unit measures roughly 29.5″ wide by 74″ tall.
We stained the frame pieces before assembly with our go-to Minwax Dark Walnut stain, which we had leftover from other projects. Staining beforehand kept the stain off the chalkboard surface. Once the stain dried, we attached the frame pieces to the board. We used a Kreg Jig to get secure, hidden pocket screws, but you could also use metal brackets or screws from behind if you don’t have a jig.
Attaching the chalkboard panel to the frame is straightforward: the board overlaps the frame slightly, so you drive screws through the plywood from the back into the frame. Use screws long enough to bite into the frame but short enough not to poke through the front; we used about 1¼” screws.
Because both stain and chalkboard paint have strong odors until fully cured, we let the assembled piece air out before bringing it into the living room. Once it was dry, we leaned it where we wanted and anchored it to the wall with sturdy anti-tip hardware to keep it from tipping over. Safety first with little ones around.
To “condition” the chalkboard surface, we rubbed the side of a piece of chalk over the entire board and then wiped it off. That primes the surface and prevents first-mark ghosting.
The dark walnut frame ties the piece into our existing living room finishes. In photos it might seem like one of the few wood tones in the space, but the console behind the sofa matches that finish. We’re planning to build or repurpose a TV cabinet in a similar rustic finish to balance the room as the space comes together. One pleasant surprise is how the chalkboard paint color echoes both the sofa and the ceiling beams, so the piece acts as a visual bridge between wood and gray elements.
For now, I wrote one of my favorite quotes across the top: “The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything.” Clara woke from her nap to find the board in the living room. She wasn’t sure at first, but when we handed her chalk she lit up. Watching her scribble across that big surface was one of those small parenting joys—her marks are beautiful in their own honest way.
Budget-wise, this was a very inexpensive project thanks to leftover materials: $0 for the plywood, stain, and magnetic paint we already had; about $10 for the chalkboard paint; and roughly $16 for four 1x6s to form the frame. That puts our total at about $26. If you need to buy everything from scratch, expect the project to cost closer to $70.
If you’ve tackled a Pinterest Challenge project recently, we’d love to see it. Share your photos, link to your post, and tell us what you learned. These community projects are the best way to turn inspiration into real, useful, and often surprisingly affordable pieces for our homes.