Chalk is Cheap

I know my title is corny, but hey it's Sunday, my brain is fried from finishing up two writing assignments and so it's the best I could come up with.  My other choice was "Chalkin' it up to Experience" and if you prefer that one then just pretend that's what I used! ;-)

On Saturday I gave Mr. Tide a nudge to head out and do something I've been wanting to do for the last 2 years.  That's how we roll around here, sometimes a little like a square block on a mild slope, but we eventually get to whatever it is that we want to get done.

I've been wanting to get the old chalkboard from my parent's house and put it in the hallway in our house.  We really needed to wait until the remodel was finished before doing this, so it really hasn't been 2 years in the making, but it feels like it has been just the same.

This chalkboard has been in my family since I can remember.  My father, who worked for the Navy as an engineer, brought it home when the place where he worked was getting ready to throw it away.  My father had a love for lost and unwanted items, something I think I inherited.  So he was known for bringing home unusual items from time to time which thrilled my mother to no end.  He even once brought home an old Navy chow hall potato peeler.  The thing was roughly the size of a 50 gallon drum and was lined with sand paper.  When you turned it on it whirled around and wore the peels off of the potato.  Great if you were feeding the whole Navy, for a family of 6, not so much!

The chalkboard on the other hand was a stroke of genius on his part.  Over the years it served as the perfect place to teach math, play school, and to write notes to each other (some less than sweet among siblings!).  And when grandchildren came into the picture, it found a new life all over again.  My mother took long term substitute teaching jobs as a way to earn extra money, sometimes filling in for 6 months at a time, so she loved to use it to teach her own children and then her grandchildren different subjects including math and French.  Our daughter who went on to get her undergraduate degree in French would often leave notes for my mother in this romantic language.

So when my mother passed, my father asked the 4 kids to go through the house and put stickers with our birth order number (I'm number 4 of 4!) on the pieces we really wanted to inherit.  I knew right away which pieces I wanted, the chalkboard being at the top of the list.  No one else seemed interested.  My sister "M" already had a chalkboard for her children and my other two siblings had other items that meant more to them, or maybe they sensed how much I really wanted that chalkboard.

When we bought this house it had a hallway which leads back to all of the bedrooms, it's almost identical to my parent's house so I knew just where the chalkboard would one day hang.  I wanted to pass by it everyday on the way to our bedroom, just as I had done all those years that I lived with my parents.  And the same way that our children and nieces and nephews had done whenever they had sleepovers at Nana and Opa's house.

"Before" No Chalkboard!

Today was the big day, and Mr. Tide grudgingly agreed to hang it for me and aside from a massive hunt to find his drill bits, it all went fairly smoothly.

 My Stud, looking for studs!

So now, after a good cleaning, one of my favorite childhood mementos is hanging right where it was meant to be.

"After" 

I am lovin' how it looks in our hallway and check out the little box I found at Micheal's yesterday to hold the chalk and erasers.  I know, there's a lovely little ledge on the chalkboard for that, but nosey puppy dogs would make a meal of that chalk I'm afraid and who knows what clever Mr. Quinn would do to the erasers!

 It's the perfect size for holding the old erasers we used as kids and the colored chalk I got for 99 cents at
 Giant!

 I love this old eraser that came from Sears!  Wonder when my parents bought it?!

And maybe one day when we have grandchildren I can teach them something by writing on it's lined green surface.  It won't be math, I'm horrible at math!  And it won't be french, unless they want to learn Ou Est La Plage which means "where's the beach" and is one of the only french phrases I remember.  It is an important one to know though! 

I think I'll leave the art lessons up to someone else too!


I'm linking up for Metamorphosis Monday with Susan over at Between Naps on the Porch.







And for more great ideas and inspiration head on over to The Inspired Room.