Blackboard Dining Table

I'm either the most self-punishing person I know, or the most hopeful.  I always, always do things with my kids with these visions of how wonderful they will be.  With each new idea I just know my kids will go along with it, not fight, be kind to each other....  Like I said self-punishing or most hopeful.

I have this really old dining room table.  Half of it was painted red, and the other half was fuzzy from where an arts & crafts project went wrong.  I hated this table, but at the same time I'm not going to throw out a perfectly good table and then have to replace it.  So I decided to make it a blackboard.  I just knew I had hit on something, that my kids were going to be drawing pictures and playing "paper and pencil" games on that table while I cooked dinner and even afterwards.  I envisioned uplifting messages being left from one sibling to the next (I should tell you, my kids are ages 20, 18, 16, 11, 10, and 8).  Now in reality I was expecting the teenagers to leave rude, snarky comments, to one another.

 Do you see what I mean?  Horrid, ugly table. Cute kid though.

So it wasn't as easy as I thought.  I tried sanding it with sandpaper.  My hands were cramped, I thought I was done, and then the boyfriend walked in and said I didn't sand it enough.  Luckily he ran out, grabbed a sander that I did not know we had and sanded the table for me.  No more fuzz, but still red.

I purchased a quart of Rust-Oleum black blackboard paint for about $15 and a small rolling brush.  Three coats of paint later and 72 hours of curing time and we have a fantastic blackboard table.  I wish I could say the same for the copper paint edging.  It took more than a week to dry, and it needs a third, possibly a fourth coat.  But I'm not sure I want to go another week without a dining room table.

Here are some snippets of the fun we have (and the snarky from the teenagers *L*).

Not too bad if I do say so.  I have a ton of paint left over, wonder what I will paint next???