Classroom Makeover

July 27, 2021

2055

715CAA76-1B96-49E9-A381-B2CD2EE1951B — This board is 15ft long and made up of two pieces of shower-board glued onto the old chalkboard.

Fall 2019 my amazing husband stumbled across a fun rainbow mosaic wall on reddit. He sent it to me and suggested we do something similar in my classroom one day. I saved the picture and life went on. Soon it was March and few months later school would be out. We had a big Disney trip planned so I pushed the idea back thinking maybe at the end of summer. Then we got shut dow for COVID. Goodbye classroom, goodbye Disney, hello virtual school and staying home all the time!

After the chaos of learning new online platforms, new cleaning and mask guidelines, and everything else that the 2020/2021 school year brought we decided it was time to brighten up my room. Our amazing Heritage Foundation agreed to purchase me a new magnetic white board so since the old board had to come down I decided to get started painting.

This was my wall before, at the beginning of Day 1.

This board is 15ft long and made up of two pieces of shower-board glued onto the old chalkboard.

The old board was no longer usable. I had to soak it in whiteboard cleaner any time I wrote on it. The small marks on the top left came from Dollar Tree dry erase boards I glued up there to write my weekly objectives. The board was also hung very low. Too low for any shelves or tables to fit under it. The new board was going to be only 12 ft long and a bit shorter so I wanted to take the old board down before I began painting.

My principal is wonderful and supportive and said I could go ahead but she followed that with “are you sure there isn’t a portal to another dimension behind there?”

I sent my principal this picture and said “hey look I found your portal”

At this point time is limited. I already bought all the paint (or so I thought) and was dying to get started. After chatting with our also unbelievably amazing and supportive head custodian my husband and I set off for Lowes with the okay to fill the holes ourselves and promise of reimbursement. We went to lunch, did some research, and headed back ready to go.

First we stapled some new wire mesh across the whole thing.

We used a little expanding foam to fill in the big holes. Then we got to work with the stucco. This was the end of Day 1 and the end of our supply of stucco I made 3 more Lowes trips that week.

End of Day 3. There were so many holes and it felt like it was taking forever to fill.

End of Day 4. Now we really felt like we were making progress!

Day 7, at this point I was cleaning up the edges of each space with the color inside because we could not find the base wall color anywhere in the building. It was time consuming but the results were so satisfying that I was not bothered.

Day 8. Once I hit the green I realized there was no way I could continue outlining everything, the green bled a lot it was very watery. So I scraped off a bit of the base color and made yet another trip to Lowes for more paint.

The massive pile of tape from the whole wall!

Day 10, primed and painted the middle and pulled the colors up a bit making it nice and neat. This is where we left it and went on our 2 week vacation!

The new board was hung while we were gone and so we were able to come back and bring the colors in more.

I saved two pieces of the bulletin board that hung over the old chalkboard and cut them to put on the sides. Before hanging them they were wrapped in gray felt. Then we taped off 4 inch around the whole board and started the black frame.

It took me a while to choose what kind of frame I wanted around the board but I love the final design! Now I can finally start assembling the room into its normal order for the new school year.

There is no way I could have ever even dreamed of something this amazing in my classroom. I give all the credit to my husband for the idea and endless hours of help. I already love my job and now I get to love my space every day. We are going to create some amazing art this year.