Happy Mail Home Part 2.

This week you get a front row seat at the epic battle between

The Happy Mail Home vs. The Shearers.

You may remember the Happy Mail Home project won the first round thanks in large part to it's evil counterpart - Rust-Oleum magnetic paint. Team Shearer was slightly discouraged and majorly annoyed, but would not back down.

When round one ended we were left with this non-magnetic, magnetic paint painted pantry door. Try saying that 5 times fast.

The photo you see above was the result of 5 days and 12 coats of Rust-Oleums magnetic paint. It became apparent we had two options that would help us maintain what little bit of DIY dignity we had left. Option #1: We could come up with another plan to achieve the desired concept or Option #2: we could pretend the whole project was just a silly idea anyway and rip the door off and forget about it. I'm not organized enough to go without a door on my pantry so option #1 it was.

Thanks in large part to many of you, we came up with our plan B. A lot of you offered up suggestions that would allow us to bi-pass painting on the magnetic surface and instead install it, and that's just what we did. We purchased a large piece of sheet metal that Brent cut to fit the pantry door.

Once the metal was cut Brent installed the piece by screwing it in place.

FINALLY! A magnetic wall! Now, it was time to make it pretty.

We taped off the door in preparation for painting.

But before we painted we sprayed on this Zinsser primer to ensure the paint would adhere to the metal surface.

Oncer the primer had dried we were ready to paint. We decided as long as the DIY stars were aligned in our favor we would try our luck with Rust-Oleum's chalk board paint.

This would essentially kill two birds with one stone. Actually three birds.

Bird 1: We wanted the magnetic part of this door to be painted black anyways.
Bird 2: The ability to have a message board of sorts would add to the functionality, not to mention the cool factor.
Bird 3. If this worked it would semi restore my faith in Rust-Oleum and I would feel comfortable throwing their voodoo doll away.

So we sprayed on that chalkboard paint and hoped for the best.

As is the case with spray painting, drips/runs happen. It's just the nature of the process. If and when this happens it's best to let the paint dry and then lightly sand the areas with the drip and repaint.

Next, it was time to trim out this beast. So we headed to Home Depot for some material.

Photo from my Instagram.

OK, OK - all of that trim wasn't for this one project but I mean really, how tough does the little Honda look?

Once home Brent took some measurements, he made some cuts and began installing the trim around the chalk/magnetic surface to create a wooden frame.

Vertical pieces first...

and then horizontal....

Once the frame was up, we caulked the nail heads and corners and were ready to paint:

With the door FINALLY complete, we were ready to start posting our invites and announcements, but first we ran to the store to pick up another necessity - chalk!