Ugly Refrigerator? No Problem!

So as you can see, our refrigerator had this wooden look to it, which we didn't like. It made the whole kitchen have a cabin feel to it that just didn't work for us. We realized pretty quickly that it was just wood paneling that had been inserted into brackets on the front of the fridge and dishwasher. So what do we do about this problem?? 

CHALKBOARD PAINT!

Not having any experience with chalkboard paint, it turned out much better than I expected! The black looks great in our kitchen, especially since the oven is already black, so now all the appliances match! Chalk writes great on it, and erases easily. We've been using wet napkins to wipe it off, which gets all the chalk dust off and makes it pure black again, but a normal chalk board eraser would probably also work.

I didn't think to take any pictures during the process, but it's pretty easy to do. Since our fronts were paneling, we just pulled that out and painted them. I did 3 coats of paint to get it dark enough that the 'wood grain' didn't show through. The paint can said to use a primer, so if you did that you'd probably only have to do 1 or 2 coats, I just didn't have any on hand and didn't want to go to the store AGAIN.

The directions say to wait 24 hours before using, so make sure to do that or you'd probably end up with permanent writing or something equally bad. For the sides of the fridge, we just pulled it out far enough from the wall and painted the parts that were visible, of course making sure to lay plenty of newspaper so we didn't get paint on the tile. The paint actually adhered to the refrigerator vinyl pretty well, so it also only took 3 coats.

So far, we've just been drawing pictures on the front, but I'm thinking the side of the fridge will be great for planning out dinners, and making a running grocery list. Have you done any crafts or DIY projects with chalkboard paint?