A Finished Command Center Chalkboard!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I know I'm days late, but I hope you all had a good one! Ours was low key this year, just us and one of my husband's cousins (and two of her friends). It was quiet, but fun!  We got all old school and played a bit of N64. Because we're awesome like that. And a little bit nerdy to boot.

Anyways, cooking is something my husband and I really enjoy doing together, so we just hung out together in the kitchen part of Wednesday and most of Thursday putting all the food together. It was amazingly relaxing.  Hope you all had equally awesome (& hopefully relaxing) Thanksgivings as well!

But anyways, on to the really awesome news! Today, I am excited to tell you, that we finally got around to finishing our command center chalkboard!!! And it is beautiful. Seriously....so gorgeous!

Do you guys remember this wood from way back when?

Oh yah. This was totally the project I had in mind for it. And it came out better than I had even dared to hope. With some help from my hubby of course (he is so awesome =]). I'm still a bit hopeless when it comes to doing this sort of thing on my own.  But someday...;].

We started by removing the old, nasty nails. We did this by nailing the sharp end of the nail back into the wood. This lifted up the heads of the nails on the other side high enough so we could pry them out.

Once we got the nails out, we measured the sides of our chalkboard. I had spray painted it a long time before this, so there wasn't much to do there in that respects. Once we had our measurements, we cut our boards accordingly, making sure to cut 45 degree angles on the ends of each for a more finished look.

We don't exactly have the fanciest of tools so we simply used a round edged ruler and a hand saw to accomplish this. It was... probably more work than it was worth (not that that was an entirely difficult feat to manage...it being free and all...).

We then mounted the chalkboard directly to the wall. Once that was done we attached the frame by screwing each individual piece into the studs, to give it extra support. The wood was pretty heavy.

We then primed the chalkboard by rubbing it down with chalk (necessary, unless you want everything you write on there to be permanent) and then spent the next half hour vacuuming up all the mess and putting the tools away.

When we were finished we were left with this:

 Eeeee!!!!! Love!!!!! The color of that weathered wood is seriously just so gorgeous. Adds a bit of shabby chic to our home. So fun!

Now, all that is left to do is to get two more bins for the command center to fill the top middle slots, add some bling to the walls, and finish turning the 'Fresh Bulb's' box into a charging station. For realz!

In the meantime I'll do a happy dance with the progress we've made. It is SO much better already than when we started.... need I remind you! 

Yeeeeesh! Those were not exactly the days.  

Anyways, wishing you the happiest of DIY projects and many wonderful holiday memories ahead! It is now time for me to catch some shut eye. Double for realz.

 I'm linking this up with Thrifty Decor Chic's Before and After Party!