I think we have all had heavy hearts lately, saddened that the world can be such a cruel place for those who are so innocent. After watching/reading the news all day on Friday, I decided to doodle on something I made the weekend before. Doodles always make me smile, maybe they do the same for you.

I started with an Ikea frame we already had.

I checked to see what the backing to the frame looked like. Turns out, it was a nice smooth board. Perfect for some chalkboard paint 🙂

As a kid, I always loved playing school and writing on the blue chalkboard I had in my room. I was always the first to volunteer to write on the board at school and I loved trying different types of handwriting (my middle school speciality was that I could write on a chalkboard just as well with my left hand as my right). With the chalkboard trend making the rounds, I have wanted one for over a year. We’re planning on making one wall of the office a chalkboard wall, but I got impatient. Need. Doodles.

While I was taking an initial look at the frame, I broke the glass. It was a total accident that actually worked out for me because I felt bad wasting it. Now the only part I wasn’t using was the mat, which I ended up placing behind the board to keep everything fitting tight. Whew?

I used Valspar’s chalkboard paint in black and rolled it on with a foam roller we had hanging around.

Each coat took me about… 1 minute. I waited maybe 10 minutes between each coat and ended up doing 3 coats.

I let it completely cure overnight, then I rubbed some chalk over the entire surface. The Valspar can said nothing about doing this, but I had seen it all over other blogs. Better safe than sorry.

Once it was all done, I got to writing. In the past, I’ve watched some YouTube videos of professional chalkboard writers and took some hints. One of these days, I’ll try something elaborate with proper spacing and planning but for now, this is what I did in a total of 10 minutes.

Needs work, but not bad for a first attempt at chalkboard art. I then stuck it on the mantel, which is still a work in progress.

We’re waiting for some Christmas prints of Easton to arrive to fill a frame or two, then I might add some wrapping paper to the remaining ones. Once that happens I can take some decent daylight pictures of our Christmas mantel.

I planned this post out in my head and then jumped in the shower. It didn’t feel right to me to not fully address what happened in Connecticut, though I really don’t feel like I have the right words to say. “Making Spirits Bright”, while positive, still felt like I was being cold.

So I just ran downstairs, erased my chalkboard, and changed it to this.

Twenty little hearts, for twenty little hearts.

Because a picture is worth more words than I could string together.

No, I’m not talking about the Office with Andy Bernard in charge (which just isn’t the same, btw), I’m talking about the office we plan to move upstairs that I mentioned here. I’ve blogged about how I’d like to build a window seat and Mike posted about how he’d like to do some dramatically large lyrics on the wall, but other than that we haven’t told you much. We have received an estimate to continue the hardwood flooring we added to our hallway and master last year into the remaining 3 bedrooms. That would mean that our entire upstairs would be seamlessly full of this…

This was our plan all along, we just tried to break up the expense over 2 installs. Since we’re getting serious about moving the office, we figured the carpet should go before we do so. Macky looooves shredding that particular type of carpet and whenever he weasels his way into one of the spare bedrooms, he immediately goes to town. This would probably drive us crazy after about…. an hour of sitting in the new office.

Then we bought a couch and a tv so the addition of the floors got put on the back burner. We like to only tackle a major expense at a time, so we’ve decided to wait until November/December to add the floors (depending on our contractor’s availability). In the meantime, Mike and I have been scouring Pinterest for some inspiration. Yes, Mike sneaks on Pinterest and sends me links to things he likes quite often.

First, the chalkboard walls. We want chalkboard paint walls behind our desks. We’re both desperately missing a space to jot down notes, code and to-do lists in our current office and chalkboard paint is the natural choice.

(from Craftaholics Anonymous via Pinterest)

I love the clothesline for inspiration pictures in this one, though I’m not sure it’s chalkboard paint, it could be!

(from The Marion House Book via Pinterest)

(from Decor Pad via Pinterest)

And the classic chalkboard calendar from good, ol’ Martha.

(from Martha Stewart via Pinterest)

Other than giant chalkboard walls and a built-in bench, we’re not entirely sure what we want to do with the rest of the room. The room is so large that it’s hard to visualize and I’m afraid we’ll end up with 2 smallish desks floating in the center of two 15 foot walls. Then today, Mike found a few ideas that I think can work for us.

First, some wall cabinetry flanking either side of the desk to break up the large chalkboard wall…

(from Blueprint Bliss via Pinterest)

Second, maybe some high, open shelving to keep the “backsplash” area open for chalkboard writing.

(from Design*Sponge via Pinterest)

Furthering the open shelving look, I like the idea of doing just one continous shelf around the top of the room. Sort of like the top shelf in this picture…

(from Marcus Design via Pinterest)

Whatever we decide, the change will likely be gradual. I know Mike wants to get settled into the office quickly, but we’ll still tackle one project at a time and see where the room takes us. We just know we want it to be streamlined, clean, full of storage and uncluttered. We’re currently having a serious paper issue in our office. Meaning that, Mowie chews paper… in our office. She ate my softcover, rented textbook last night. Needless to say, we’re reaching our limit with storage-less desks and we’re looking forward to some new solutions 🙂