"Sunday Funday" - Shabby Chic Shutters

Why are Sunday's the most fun days? Is it because (for most of us) we know its the last day of our freedom before we go back to work bright and early the next morning? Well for me, it was because my best friend Meghan was in town visiting us from Bellingham!
Meghan is my artistic friend and she came down with some plans for us. We started Sunday by sleeping in (is 8:30 considered sleeping in?) and then venturing to this store that my girlfriend Sara was telling me about, EarthWise. Basically it is a junk yard/ goodwill for DIYers. We wandered through all the old light fixtures, doors, mantles, and old tools and found some cute basic shutters and an interesting old cabinet door. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with each piece! First tutorial will be for our shutters. 

Shabby Chic Wooden Shutters

Materials-
Shutters
Screw Driver
Paint
Paintbrushes
Towel/rag
Sander (not necessary just really helpful)
220 Sandpaper
Chalk Board Spray Paint
Tape
Staple Gun
Fabric of any kind (I used Burlap)  
Chalk

1. Start out by taking the hardware off the shutter. Mine came with some hinges since they were originally put together as one piece, so I took that puppy apart. (I did not do this next, but I would also suggest removing the shutter stick. I later removed it because I made one as a mail holder and no mail would fit because the shutter stick split it in half!)

2. Next I took my sander to the whole surface except the actual shutter part. If I had already had spray paint at home I might have thought about doing the shutters too, but since I didn't, I just did the border around.

3. Once it is sanded to your liking, wipe the surface you wish to paint (very well). 
4. I whipped out 
my Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Old White, and went at it. One of the best parts about chalk paint is that it drys very quickly. So I did one coat of paint, and then moved on and did coats of paint on my other projects and by the time I was done with those, the first coat had dried and I did a second coat. The first coat isn't as important for all the streaks and brush marks to be out. And if you don't get it super smooth on your second coat, the sanding afterwards will help smooth it out a ton.

5. After the second coat dried, I took it over to my sander and sanded the corners and edges to get more of the distressed/older look, and lightly over the whole surface to smooth it out and to have some distressed parts throughout. 

6. After the distressing is done, whip it down again (the chalk paint makes a mess when you sand.)

7. Next, tape off a portion that you want to be the chalkboard. I chose the whole bottom portion because I wanted a bigger space to doodle. (As you can see from my photo, I was unable to locate my painting tape, so I settled for duct tape. I just kept making sure it was puckering up before I sprayed.)

8. After the portion is taped off, I sprayed in a sweeping motion and covered the whole space. Be careful not to let the product pool on the surface because that won't ever even out. In this case, it is a lot safer to go lighter and eventually do more coats then to accidentally spray to heavily. I ended up doing three coats (2 might have been enough).

9. After I was sure the chalkboard spray paint had dried onto the shutter, I ran my chalk all over the surface. I don't remember the reasoning for this, but this makes it so that what you write isn't permanent. It kind of activated the chalk paint to work as a chalk board. 

10. Last but not least, I added some fabric to the back so no mail would fall through! I just used my staple gun around the perimeter of the fabric. For my other shutter, I just painted the whole border white and use it as decor in my house! You have options people! 

Thanks for reading!
Let me know if you have any similar projects, or have any questions or comments!

xoxo,
Kaitlin