This is a great topic. First off, I hate chalk dust. I even dislike using sidewalk chalk on my driveway. But I put up with it to appease my four year old. I'm redoing my kitchen so I also need another place for the magnets. No way in hell I'm going to mess up the finish on my new fridge. So, what I'm going to do is a magnetic dry erase board. You can find those in various sizes from $30-$200 depending on the size and frame material. I'm even going to have the cabinet maker make a frame to match my cabinets.

Same category as fridge magnets - clutter!

the chalk boards look nice in magazines. in real kitchens they are like magnets, simply add to chaos, clutter.
We are in an electronic age. far easier to use your phone and other devices to take and leave notes.

In theory, I like them. In practice, they seem messy and contrived. I think it would take a lot of effort to keep a chalkboard looking clean.

If you like the idea of a chalkboard but are concerned about dust, whether for health or cleaning reasons, try a variety of dustless chalk brands until you find one that works well. It will make a huge difference in the amount of chalk dust you get. When my kids were young, Crayola brand used to be good but recently it seems the formula changed and it's much dustier than before, so we switched to Sargent.

Chalk markers are a good option, too. Not as cheap as chalk, but no dust at all.

If you have kids, one person gets the job each nigh of washing the board clean : ).

I don't know if it helps, but we're not particularly electronic (no cell phones in our household) and I'm unsentimental enough that I don't mind erasing the board every night!

Becky

I like them. I just painted a chalkboard/magnetic wall in my son's room and I love looking at his drawing of the day when I tuck him in. When I see chalkboards in the kitchen it always makes the space look homey to me. I love the idea of someone writing a message (I would have no issue erasing it!) or posting what's for dinner. I do agree that a grocery list doesn't make a lot of sense.

When I saw Christopher Peacock's kitchen one of the first things I noticed was the chalkboard door. I liked it because while I like his designs, some of the pictures you see look like the doorway may be roped off with a sign next to it saying "don't touch anything!". I think the chalkboard door evokes more of a casual, "take a seat" feeling.

Christopher Peacock's Kitchen from Traditional Home:

Thanks everyone! Momof3kids - I love your blackboard :)

I think they are fun. If I had the space I would put one
in. I wish I had this idea when my kids were tiny. They
would have loved this.

Here are my faves...
~boxer

Backsplash. WHAT FUN!!! You can change it on your whim.

Not in a kitchen but oh this would have been so loved
when my oldest was 3.

Are you an artist or artistically inclined?

I like the idea, and have seen them look great, but usually when the owner is an artist or at least has lovely handwriting. Oh, and something clever to say. Or cute kids, or some combo of the above.

But for most mortals, I think they end up looking messy.

Did you know that there is such a thing as a ''chalk holder''? They look like fat mechanical pencils. The chalk goes inside and your hands stay clean, the chalk doesn't break, your pocket stays unchalked. Very popular among . . . actually, I can't remember seeing anyone use one, since I was a small child. But they are still made, cost nothing ($5), and apparently there are enough users to support the global industry of chalk holder manufacturers. Which may consist of a couple of old guys wondering why the phone never rings, but anyway you can buy them. I meant no insult to old people, those without hands (sorry Flipper), those lacking $5, SWMBO, and everyone else who I've just demeaned.

LOL!

"Or cute kids, or some combo of the above."

I also should have added to my post: If I didn't have kids, I probably wouldn't want anything to do with them :-)

My wife and I are both artsy types. We sketch. We draw. We list. Anything. We love the quirky transient nature of the chalkboard, and it's down home feel. We do not love it's mess nor it's ability to turn into a grungy undecipherable blackened wall smear.

The topic of the kitchen chalkboard has come up and we've decided to try one out so long as it isn't in a place where people might rub up against it (like kids inevitably on their way to church or in their best clothes) or sit stagnant (because an old board ... seems very depressing to me). I guess what I'm saying is that we're thinking it gets a probationary spot in the kitchen plan. If it doesn't work out, fun mirror goes in, or possible message board / organizer thing.

I really like them. I painted a door in my kitchen with both blackboard paint and magnetic paint. Truth told, I mostly use it as a magnet board for my kids' art, but sometimes the kids write on it as well. The painted door in my kitchen is a little out of the way, so the kids are not constantly walking by it or rubbing up against it.

I also think they look great in kitchens, some of the pictures that boxerpups posted are stunning!

I dont know how prolific your kids are, but when our kids were at the height of their artistic powers (preschool maybe?), we got a lot of work product to display (with 3 kids close in age). We strung a clothes line across the mudroom and they hung it up themselves, with clothespins.

We have framed some of our faves, and are waiting to site the gallery in our new home. It's amazing how lovely the art looks framed in glass. I had a friend with a craftsman DR, with just a little wall space above the wood panelling ... and she would prop the framed kids art along the little shelf .... looked great.

mtnrdredux - my dh did just that about two weeks ago, he framed a few of my daughter's paintings. They do really look great (although perhaps only a mother could see the beauty in them!). I have them up on the walls and shelves mixed with "real art", it is fresh and fun. My son's work (he is only 3) hasn't made it to 'framing" level yet I guess - his stuff is on my magnetic black board!

I don't know if "love" is quite the word, but I do like mine, and it is useful.

First, I found it at an antique shop, it's an old cabinet door retrofitted with a chalkboard. I like the wood, because, if anyone remembers, I have a white kitchen but quite a few pine pieces scattered about the kitchen and family room, so I like how this ties that together. It's in the hall between kitchen and mudroom/garage, so not right out in the middle of everything (so it doesn't really need to be perfectly designed and/or clean).

How we use it: you finish something, you write it down. You want something from the store, you write it down. It isn't 100% effective, but pretty close. Right now it has entries from 3 of 4 family members.

And rather than copy everything down on paper, I just take an phone pic of the blackboard, and take *that* to the market.

I kind of agree with Anenemity, they sound nice, but I probably wouldn't use it and it would be really dusty.

I have one of those chalk holders somewhere. I'm still not going to get a kitchen blackboard.

Someone mentioned magnetic paint. Really? They make that?

We ordered chalkboard fridge inserts for our old KitchenAid built-in fridge, and our children loved writing on it each and every day. Our new house has a SS fridge, and the kids miss that chalkboard fridge. I painted a 3' by 5' part of a wall in the kitchen with chalkboard paint, and the kids use that now, but it's not magnetic, nor is it as smooth or easy to erase as was the old chalkboard fridge. I ordered the inserts from some place in Colorado -- no idea if they still exist. On the down side: the chalk is dusty, and it gets on the floor, even the so-called dustless chalk. I'm not fastidious, so it doesn't make me crazy. Just wipe it up, and it's gone. And yes, the chalkboard wall we have now (and the old fridge) has to be cleaned with a microfiber cloth -- the old fashioned eraser won't do.

I had one in my previous house, but it was in my laundry room. We used the chalk board fairly often, and the chalk was a big mess, but it didn't deter us from using it. Consider how complex your trim is, as the dust will lodge itself in every available crevice and will be difficult to remove without a toothpick and a wet paper towel.
I'm trying to decide about one for the house we're currently building. The mess makes me think twice. I'm leaning more toward a cork or metal board that can act as a message board and I think I'd like to hang it on the inside of my pantry door-out of sight unless the door's open. Dry erase could be cool, but all I can imagine is my kids trailing off the board onto the door/wall/appliance behind it. I'd rather deal with dust than marker stains...

I was just reading this thread again and realized how some of our sons' less than charming favorite words may make it onto the chalkboard or dry erase board anonymously. I guess we will have to be vigilant or the words "poop" or "pee" will be sneaking on. I can't believe that hadn't occurred to me sooner. They are at that age... (and have been for years... sigh).

mcmjilly; yep, they really do make magnetic paint. You can get it at Home Depot. or Rona or Canadian Tire if you are in Canada. It is a little time consuming - the more coats you do, the more magnetic the board is. We did about 5 coats I think, it could have stood another 3 or 4 I think. It is very handy.

I have some sheet metal laying around (previous owners owned a sheet metal/heating business). I wonder if I could paint that with chalkboard paint (will it stick or flake off?). I could build a frame around that and have a combo magnet/chalk board. The chalkboard paint in a useable thickness shouldn't render the metal unable to hold magnets.
We just converted to a SS fridge as well and the metal sides are covered by panels that match the cabinets - so, no "message center". I'm glad for the reduction in clutter, but need to find a tasteful, appropriately-located replacement.

Thanks for the good ideas, Dean

The blackboard I had was over magnetic paint. I used about 7 coats, and it worked so so. I always thought it wasn't working because of the light texture on my wall, but at this point I just wonder if it's an inferior product. If I were going to try it again, I would do it on a board rather than my actual wall. It takes so many coats to make the magnet stick that it becomes quite thick, and very strong magnets still would only hold a single piece of paper.

singingmicki - my magnetic paint blackboard doesn't hold more than one single piece of paper either, and I do have to get good relatively large magnets. It does manage to hold up my kids' art and shopping lists though. Maybe 10 coats would be better??

I am so glad you posted this. We are going back and forth about the blackboard, whiteboard, bulletin board decision. I am still not sure! I really want a SmartBoard! (I am a teacher and keep wishing I have a couple thousand dollars to drop on a smartboard!

LOL, skatiero! My kids want a smartboard, too. We just finished fundraising to put them in all their classrooms a year or so ago.

I have found a corkboard to be the best family solution, since it is also good for invites and the like.

mtnrdedux,
I think a cork board is in my future; I want to install it on the back of a cabinet door that I use for my kitchen office; out of sight, but easily accessible. I also love the magnetic strips they sell at the Container Store; inexpensive, and they look like they are really strong!

This is a timely post! We finally found one that we liked - it has a sliding chalkboard and a bulletin board. It is just around the corner from the kitchen hall behind our kitchen in the mud room - I see it when I come in from the garage and it is a great reminder of everything coming up during the week (and beyond) - it has been a good addition for us.

(wow - I need to put away some coats!)

We have a large dry erase board in the kitchen and use it all the time. It's where people check for notes. It' also where I'll write a list of stuff to do for the day or week. It's easier for me to see and remember than a list I might misplace. When we have a super busy week, we write down the schedule for each day-where everyone will be and what time. That helps me visualize what and when we should eat dinner each night.

laura - would you mind sharing where you found your chalk/bulletin board? Thanks!

Dry erase markers work on glass. Possibilities are endless with that: hang an old window in a frame, mount a panel on a painted wall, picture frames, etc.

Two things:
* Know Thyself!
* An outdated chalkboard message is a curse.

At one point in the evolution of our kitchen design I decided to paint the metal door to garage with chalkboard paint. This in the entry area adjacent to kitchen. DH objected and now I'm glad he did. The space is relatively formal and no matter how much high-end stuff we put in there, the chalkboard would have stolen the show and ratcheted down the formality. Additionally DH has crappy handwriting and cannot spell. My handwriting is eccentric. We would have elevated our countertop paper notes into a terrible piece of art if they were magnified and framed. And, as noted, you still need to copy down any really useful stuff like memos and shopping lists.

"Welcome, Bill and Sue" on a chalkboard sounds like such a great thing to welcome guests but how likely were we to actually keep this up? (We have friends who tried one of these near their front door; the last time we visited they had their previous guests' names chalked up on the board and we felt like afterthoughts.)

We have a piece of framed art adjacent to the garage door now and it's much nicer. We have a paper calendar and some scratch pads at desk for our to-do and grocery planning. (Actually we usually do plans the back of an envelope and flesh them out at the peninsula while eating breakfast.)

This post couldn't come at a more perfect time. I was just about to post a question about painting a large portion of my wall in chalk board paint - like 5' by 6'. So glad I saw this before I posted!

So laur66 - did you paint your wall? What did you decide?

I like the idea of painting a wall in theory, and place for magnetic letters (two young kids here) and the daily art work that comes home from preschool. But so worried that it will make my one big space in my kitchen look like a cluttered mess.

Just wondering what you decided...

(Slowly raising hand) Ummm... I am a proud owner of two chalk holders. And yes Johnliu... I do actually use them! LOL

We have a manual dumbwaiter that required a self closing fire door due to fire code issues. We worked the dumbwaiter into our cabinetry and covered that fire door with a chalkboard door. We love it. It is not magnetized, so only chalk resides there. Usually it ends up with grocery lists, household lists, menus, holiday messages etc. We have no kids here. It is just for us :)

Sadly, the chalkboard was used rather heavily for the never ending punch list of items that were left to get done during the remodel.

repaintingagain, here are some pictures of my blackboard/magnetic board in my kitchen. It is the door to the basement (rarely used). I have a six-year old girl and a three-year old boy, so lots of art to put up. Does it ever look like a cluttered mess? Yep, you bet. I organise/refresh it once a month or so. But it also brings something to the kitchen that I love - colour, fun. I have a pretty "adult" kitchen I guess, but I love the bits of my kitchen dedicated to my kids. Just in case I start to take my kitchen obsession too far, my kids' artwork (and the pictures I have of them on my kitchen wall) bring me back to reality - young children live here! Nothing wrong with that.

hi aokat15 - it is from Pottery Barn - :-)

Hi Repainting,

My wall is still sitting unpainted because I am still undecided! We are painting the kitchen this weekend so we will just paint the wall and see what it looks like after. If I do go with the chalkboard idea I am leaning toward something like Laurainlincoln has rather than using the chalkboard paint. Easy to remove if I tire of it :)

Love.

We have two magnetic chalkboards + love them. I don't think they're messy, but maybe my tolerance is higher than others. My respite care provider likes to draw on them for / with my son (4), hand-over-hand -- they're a great, low-mess tool for him. When I'm quizzing my older child (6) on Japanese or Spanish, it's super-convenient for writing the answers. Every blue moon I'll write a "honey do" list for my partner but in general, no. I am artsy + a calligraphist, but I don't scratch that itch there ....

I find them convenient for the magnetic property (the grocery list is stuck there, as are bday invites, time-sensitive things from school, etc.), and the kids like the chalkboard. Who knows what'll happen as they age. Oh wait, my partner likes to write the week's menu on them (he does the bulk of the cooking).

In my den (I guess others might call it a home office / study) I have the wall in back of my work area covered with cork, so I personal / inspirational things stuck there. I would NOT want corkboard or anything necessitating pins out near my children. (my youngest isn't safe)

I would do ours again in a New York minute! Oh, and we've had them for three years now.

We are putting a chalkboard door on our pantry. I had never heard of chalkboard markers, but always wondered how menu boards in restaurants looked so good. Here is a great video if anyone else is in the dark like I was:

Here is a link that might be useful: Chalkboard Markers

Thanks for that link Ace! I've been looking for blackboards online and haven't been able to come up with much except for the $500 ones at Restoration Hardware :( Love the chalkboard markers, one of the things that lots of the posters here mentioned as a negative was the chalkboard dust and this eliminates that!

Hmmm, the link for the chalkboard markers has renewed my interest in a chalkboard/corkboard combo on the back of my pantry door. Thanks for posting that link!

Sochi and rmkitchen, did you buy your magnetic chalkboards already made? My experience was that the do-it-yourself magnetic paint only partially works. If you did it yourself, I'd be curious to know how. I always wondered if I missed a step or something...

We are doing what funfarm mentioned in our new build. I have a 4' x 8" piece of sheet metal framed like our doors. It will be painted with chalkboard paint, so it is magnetic and we can write on it with chalk. In this pic, it is covered, but you can see how it is just framed sheet metal and it has some magazine pics stuck up with magnets. We have this in our mudroom, so hopefully the mess will stay contained!

singingmicki - we painted our door ourselves, using chalkboard and then magnetic paint. It is not as strong as we might like, we have to use pretty strong magnets to stick. It is a question of how many coats of the magnetic paint you put on - we did at least five or six, I would probably recommend ten coats. It is a little time consuming to paint, but not at all difficult. Anyway, ours works well now with good quality magnets. It is certainly a lot cheaper doing it yourself.

I should have said that we use good LARGE magnets. The tiny little novelty magnets won't work, you need good surface area on the magnet for it to work well. You can see the size of some we used - large flowers, lady bugs, etc.

Okay, so I'm nervous. My name says it all - I'm always repainting something because I get it wrong the first time or two. So I'm not sure if I feel like painting and repainting a 5x6 area of my kitchen wall. But I had two decorators visit from Pottery Barn (you know how they do that free consulation, well they did it for my house and it was great!). Anyhow, one of them planted this idea to make a magnetic chalk board and now I just can't get it out of my head. They said to make it huge, as in the whole wall and that is how I got the idea. But I'm still nervous I won't like enough and spend a lot of money and time on the paint. (this stuff ain't cheap and a 5x6 area will take a good amount of quarts considering everyone says you have to put between 9-10 coats on).
Sochi - your door looks beautiful and perfectly sized. The question is would you want something 3x as big?

But then I got the idea of really making my own chalk board to hang and then remove when I'm done having it in my kitchen. I'm thinking of using a 4x8 masonite board, painting it with the two paints (magnetic/chalk) and then framing it with nice large molding. Then when I tire of it, we will bring it down to hang in the finished basement. I say finished because I'm dreaming that my basement might be finished in a couple of years. The only thing currently finished about the basement is the mess that has accumulated.

Any thoughts on this idea of hanging a large 5'x6' framed chalk board?

repaintingagin, I'm going to do the exact same thing. If I can find any time!

I figure if it doesn't look good, it can go into my sons room or the basement.

Here is a link that might be useful: How to make a blackboard.

repainting - I prefer your option - painting a 5'x6' board will still be pretty large. The whole wall might be a little over the top? As you say, you can remove the board when you tire of it. Chose or make a lovely frame for the board and you're all set. Good luck!

repaintingagain - why use magnetic chalk board paint? Why not use some stainless steel to make the board and paint it with chalk board paint (not the magnetic kind). I'm not handy but I imagine you could mount the steel on masonite board (or other type of board) and frame it out nicely with some molding. I don't think you would need so many coats and it might be less work.

so I have an entire chalkboard wall in my kitchen. I made it just a touch darker than the blue colour of the other walls, and mixed in grout to make my own chalkboard paint.

I LOVE it. It is totally the thing for us. It's messy. If you're not ok with messy, don't do it. It's not a clean look. It's so functional for us. I have a section for my grocery list and then I take a pic with my iphone to take to the store (I got catpaint to 'cross' things off my list which makes shopping a little bit more hilarious), I have appts written on there, phone messages, my dh has his plant watering schedule up...it's brilliant.