So You Think You Can Decorate: Week 2 Challenge~

Welcome to this week's project for So You Think You Can Decorate! It has been so much fun participating in this exciting competition with such a talented group of ladies. (I mean seriously!! If you didn't get a chance to check it out last week, you really need to get over there this week...simply amazing!)


This week's challenge was Catalog Inspiration. I knew as soon as I heard what the challenge is, that I wanted to share my Pottery Barn-inspired chalkboard with you all.


I have been wanting one of those huge chalkboards in the Pottery Barn Catalog for ages! Trouble is, I didn't want to spend the $149 it was going to cost to buy one. So what's a frugal OCD (Obsessively Consumed with Decorating) girl to do? Why, make one of course!

So with a little help from the Hubby, I made my own chalkboard. All it took was a 4x4 piece of underlayment (readily available at your local big box hardware store), some 1x3's, nails, wood glue and some chalkboard paint. Pretty soon we had ourselves one of these. You can read more about how we created it here.

Of course, a Pottery Barn-inspired chalkboard deserves a Pottery Barn-inspired setting in which to dwell. So I set about creating one. And here is what I came up with.

I decided to use a rustic wood console table as the basis for my vignette. It's similar to one I've seen in the PB catalog, and it was approximately the same width as the chalkboard so I knew it would work perfectly. After I had the table and chalkboard in place, it was time for the accessories.

I chose to use a pineapple garden finial and a tall topiary as the basis for my tabletop accessories. I then added in a galvanized letter H (from Anthropologie), a small cement nest (holding another bit of green to echo the green in the topiary) and an old house number nestled in the prongs of a vintage floral frog.

Of course, as any PB aficionado knows, it's also important to accessorize under a table. So I grabbed an antique box with a fabulous patina and added a wire basket full of books on top. Now, to make the basket look especially Pottery Barn-ish, I turned all the books backwards, so all that is visible are the white pages. (This is one of my favorite PB decorating tricks...it looks amazing in a bookshelf.)

I also added these cute terracotta pots filled with an old wire brush and sandpaper belt strips (sounds strange I know, but it looks perfect!) The pots were new when I purchased them. Too new. So I gave them a patina by brushing a wash of cream and burnt umber acrylic paint mixed with water over each of them. I then painted the "No. 3" on the front of one of the pots for a little interest - and because I just can't resist the urge to number things as evidenced here.

Finally, here is a great trick if you lack wall space OR if, like me, you just simply have too many wonderful pieces of art, and want to rotate them a bit. Borrowing another decorating trick I have seen in PB catalogs, I simply placed a couple of framed pieces of art in a big basket. The photos (at least the top one) are still visible in the basket, and the black frames echo the black in the chalkboard to create a sense of balance. I just love how it all turned out.

If you haven't been there yet, please head over to So You Think You Can Decorate and vote for your favorite two projects! (And if mine happens to be one of them, I won't mind a bit.) ;-)

Have a great day!