Motel Headboard Re-Purposed

The brown board you can see in front of the old doors in this pic was a curbside find from a pile at a motel undergoing some renovations.  It has a french cleat on the back because it was originally a headboard.  That's right , those plain motel headboards are attached to the wall with a french cleat and are surprisingly heavy.  I grabbed three doors from the same pile.  It was quite a score.

I gave the headboard a thorough cleaning with some hot water and TSP and a couple of coats of this green chalky paint I had at the time and used it as a headboard for a while.  It was only a temporary fix though until the room changed.  

To re-purpose the headboard I removed the cleat from the back and painted the center with a DIY chalk board paint.  It's just some black craft paint that I mix with a teaspoon of plaster of paris . 

I painted the frame in this barely there gray called "Lovely in Linen" from BeautiTone.  You can see it has these subtle undertones of sage green.

I cut a section of the french cleat to fit the shorter end so I could hang this chalkboard vertically, and it is the perfect fit for the space between  two doors.

Tip:  If you haven't used a french cleat before, it's the perfect solution for hanging really large and extremely heavy pieces like this chalk board  or large mirrors. All you need is one 4" wide board cut slightly shorter than the piece you want to hang.

Make a diagonal cut lengthwise so you have two pieces that are the same. Attach one to the back of you piece and the other to the wall.  Make sure you attach the side of the cleat the is narrowest to the wall and the same to your piece.  When you go to hang your piece the one side will hook over the other side and snug into place.

Now I have a long chalkboard that fits nicely between these two doors on one wall of my kitchen.

To turn this piece into a message center here's what I did.

I attached a little screw right at the top to hang a calendar.  I flipped ahead a month because this month has a lot of notes on it already.

I cut the bottom of a little plastic bottle and painted it to match the frame.  I attached it with   screws and filled it with some pens, markers and chalk.

A cup hook to hold scissors.

A few little screws added to hang clip boards and even one to keep the ruler handy.

Then a quick trip to the thrift store for a few little baskets. I don't know what these were originally used for . They are vinyl covered wire.  I gave both a coat of matching paint.  The smallest one holds incoming mail.

The larger one  holds  note books and receipts pads.

So here is my message center all finished.

This is perfect for me.  It has a chalk board to take down quick phone messages until they can be taken care of.  And  paper mess  mail that gets dumped on my island can now be put into the baskets until it's dealt with.  

My receipt books for daycare are always right at hand.  I can grab a pen, or marker when I need it, instead of the regular "hang on while I grab something to write with" scenario that usually happens when the phone rings.  Even scissors to clip coupons are handy.

And here's the very best part of this project. The headboard was a curbside find. The paint was left over from other jobs.  The baskets came from the thrift store for $1.  Everything else I had on hand.

There isn't a lot you can make for a buck, and I'm super happy how this one turned out.