DIY in the Yard

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I posted a few weeks ago about our backyard project, and then life kind of happened, along with a wedding and it just never culminated in a post here.

What I was working on was a chalkboard for the backyard, per this pin on pinterest.

About a month ago I headed to Home Depot and was planning on buying my own black exterior paint, then added in the unsanded grout, and doing all the DIY things the way I was seeing online. The paint was $15, the bag of unsanded grout was $13 {for the 2tablespoons that I would need}, then the sheets of plywood were going to cost $50+. Time to rethink the project. I was not going to spend almost a $100.

I’m looking around and realized that they carried 2x4’ sheets of already done chalkboard {basically finished MDF board}. Should I do that? Then I noticed they had 2x4’ sheets of thin “luan” style boarding, but would that hold up outside. Back to the paint department.

They guy asked me what I was working on, explained I was going to DIY a chalkboard for our backyard. He suggested I forego the whole thing of making the paint myself and just buy the Rustoleum chalkboard paint, since it was a heck of a lot cheaper. So I did that. The stuff went on easily and washed off of me pretty well too.

Then I decided I wasn’t going to spend a ton of money on the 1/2” plywood and instead went with the smooth finished luan board that was 4x8, and just have them cut it to a 4x5, and 4x3 piece {which they did}. The whole shebang totaled around $40 or so, a little better. I figured the 4x3 piece I could turn into a chalkboard for in the house.

A few more weeks went by and it was finally nice enough to work outside without worrying about things getting wet. In about an afternoon, the whole thing was primed {on all sides} and painted {on the front}. We let it sit on the covered porch for about a week, before I finally got the board up in the yard.

It was an easy enough project: Didn’t cost a huge fortune: And we’ll see how well it holds up with the weather, since I didn’t use exterior paint and it isn’t sheltered. So far so good. I do think that I might, at some point, take the palm sander to it and really smooth out the surface and repaint it, because it’s a lot more textured than I would like.

I’ll keep you posted on how it holds up.

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