Fireplace turned Chalkboard

What to do when your baby begins to crawl and heads straight for the fireplace? Some would say to start shopping for baby gates but I had a different idea...turn it into a chalkboard! I hated the idea of putting an ugly baby gate in front of our pretty fireplace! I found a lot of chalkboard inspiration on, you guessed it, Pinterest, such as this post.

My hubby picked up some MDF board at Home Depot and cut it to size. Then painted it with chalkboard paint. After the paint was completely dry, I had to cover the entire piece of wood with chalk and then wipe it off. 

The next day we slid the large piece of MDF board into the fireplace opening. He cut pieces of 2x4 and screwed them into the MDF board in order to fill the gap between the mantle and new chalkboard. I painted blue and white diagonal stripes on the 2x4 border, a great way to create some pattern!

 Now that my son is old enough to use the fun chalkboard in our living room, we have many different scribbles and doodles on display. Yes, he does try to eat the chalk once in a while...but that's a 14 month old for ya!

We also write special notes for holidays and celebrations. This is a lot of fun with this!

Have you painted anything with chalkboard paint lately? Or want to? This project was meant as a creative way to childproof our fireplace and we are having so much fun using it! What DIY projects do you have fun with?

Michelle