Turn a Counter Top into a DIY Chalkboard and Shelves

This post has 2 projects in one. The first one I will tell you about is the DIY Chalkboard I made with the kids from a leftover piece of countertop (after we did the bottom project.)

As I have mentioned in a previous post, we bought a cabin up north and it was pretty much ready for us to bring our stuff in to it with only a few projects (thankfully!) so some of those projects have been creating spaces outside for the kids to play and encourage them to be outdoors even more.

The picture below show what the leftover piece of countertop looked like. It was a cheap countertop that was clearanced out at Lowe's because it was already cut to size (and either returned or cut wrong). I used Chalkboard Paint Spray that I bought from Lowe's ($6) and painted the entire front side, which would have actually been the underside of it as a countertop.

Then I let the kids help me apply some fun colored duct tape, that they had in their stash, around the edges to seal the wood and over the ledge to cover the paint edges and make it look nice. We bought some Crayola Chalk that is actually a rectangular shape that so it doens't roll off the ledge.

The kids think it is fun to be able to play school outside!

The picture below is how my husband made shelves to go alongside our over the range microwave. Originally in the house there was this HUGE exhaust fan over the stove, but it shorted out and was broken, so we replaced it with an over the range microwave with exhaust. The only problem was that this former exhaust was so big that we couldn't find a microwave big enough to fill it, so we added shelves instead.

My husband bought the piece of counter top because it was the perfect surface for storing oils, spices and more on because it was washable and then we wouldn't have to paint anything (we even put leftover contact paper in the back on the wall). Because the countertop was the same type of material he was looking for to make the shelves and the fact that it was deeply clearanced (where he would had had to pay regular price for the sheets of this material) it was not a huge expense.

And as luck would have it, the leftover piece after he finished making the shelves was the perfect size to make the above chalkboard.