My menu board bit the dust. But I resurrected it.
Remember the menu board I made from a super-ugly Goodwill frame this summer?
Well, it had a little accident.
Large pieces of glass don't take kindly to being knocked off the wall.
I'd grown rather fond of my board, though, and I didn't want to just give it up. So, I popped in at Goodwill to find a new frame to paint/stain.
Lo and behold, they had what appeared to be a sibling of the original ugly frame/print I started with.
(original on the left, new one on the right)
I didn't snap a photo of the frame, but it was the exact same dark stain/black speckled finish as my first frame. Apparently everyone is currently donating their framed 80s prints. 😉
Anyway, I started to feel cautiously hopeful about being able to just pop the glass from the new frame right into the already-refinished frame.
So, I carefully removed the glass from the new Goodwill frame and yes! It fit into the stained framed.
(Oh, happy day!)
I really wanted to make sure that we didn't repeat the falling-off-the-wall thing again, though, so I decided this needed a wire hanger and whatever the heck you call this thing:
(Previously the menu board had just been hanging on a nail. We should not be surprised it got knocked off the wall, should we?)
I found some wire in the toolbox, but couldn't come up with eye hooks, and I figured I was going to have to buy some.
But I kept on digging through all the compartments of random hardware and I came up with two eye hooks.
Eeeeeexcellent.
I screwed them into the sides of the frame and then wound the wire through them.
(See the old hanger there? Not secure, people, not secure.)
And I cleaned off the glass from the new Goodwill frame, gave it several coats of chalkboard spray paint, and put it into the stained frame.
Yay!
I did have to pay $7 for the new Goodwill frame, but I already owned everything else I used for this fix, and that makes me happy.
I haven't yet decided what I will do with the empty ugly frame I now have.
For the moment, I'll probably store it on a laundry room shelf, and next summer I may paint or stain it and use it to frame some of my kids' art, because that doesn't really require glass.
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P.S. I already discovered that glass-less frames are kind of great.
I believe those prints ARE siblings. They are both from a home party company called Home Interiors, sometime in the 90s. My mom had them. Good for you for replacing an item you loved and was useful for your family!
Yes, they were from Home Interiors. Home Interiors was a big thing back in the 80s...I had quite a lot of their products including the picture of the mailbox above. 🙂
Oh, nice! Is yours at Goodwill now? 😉
My mom had the print on the right!
I raised two boys, one of them was on the high school wrestling team as were many of his friends. If they were in the same room together they were trying out wrestling moves. Could they try them outside on our 1 1/2 acres of grass? Noooooooooo!
I came home to broken glass a few times. 😀
You mean it's not normal to try all of the wrestling moves in the living room on Christmas day? No one? Hm...must just be my house.
We also sport a Ninja Warrior-esque course out in a shed. Everything looks normal until you look up. Then all I see is a broken bone waiting to happen.
Nice save! I'm new, so I hadn't seen the original. But I think the chalk board looks much better than our meal calendar on the fridge. I guess me might be upgrading somethime soon. Maybe we'll just use dry erase pens on the glass so that we're not out of pocket...
Fantastic on so many levels. I am going to link to this in my 'open house' (aka open blog - anything goes for everyone) post tomorrow as there is much I have to say on the subject of menu-boards!
Oooh, what a satisfying & successful project. Love it!
Looks great! I'm wondering if you could use the back side of those prints for chalkboards or will that paint only work on glass?
I've never tried it on anything else, but I'm doubtful about it working on an absorbent surface like that. Also, I think the paper would tear when you tried to write on it.
This is a great idea, but you most probably could have gone to a hardware store and gotten another piece of glass for that old frame. Better yet, you could have gotten them to cut a piece of plexiglass, which you could then paint and use for the same purpose. Another fix would have been to find a 1/4 inch plywood scrap, cut it to size, and use that with chalkboard paint.
(signed) Someone who has been there!
Oh, that's true about the plywood. Although it would have to be super thin plywood to fit in the frame!
Does plexiglass work with chalkboard paint? I'd be worried about it not sticking.
I grew up with the picture from that new frame hanging on the wall. A blast from the past 🙂
I would have gone for something unbreakable that could be painted with chalkboard paint. A think piece of plywood or ???(What's that stuff they make pegboards out of? Is it "chipboard"?). But it sounds like this is going to be very secure, so you should be OK.
Hi Kristen,
If it breaks again you might try Michael's or Hobby Lobby for replacement glass. Not in the frame department but on the shelf ready cut. It might be less than $7 especially with a coupon.
With the new old frame...one year I made an earring holder out of an old frame. Painted it and then stapled regular screen around the inside. I used eye hooks and used a pretty ribbon to hang on a nail. It holds wired earrings easily. You could even put some sort of thumb tack across the top to hang a few necklaces.
Patti
Like this:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/202236352/large-purple-mauve-screened-earrings?ref=sr_gallery_9&ga_search_query=screened+frame+for+earrings&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery
Other backing ideas:
Get creative and use items other than wire mesh or window screens!
- lace
- chicken wire
- mesh bags from apples, onions or potatoes
- string several wires across in a straight line...
Haha, my reaction was: $7?! That's why I don't shop at Goodwill that often - for a thrift store, they're on the pricier side.
This is true. And many readers have emailed me, shocked that I paid $7. 😉
But I was already there (Lisey needed jeans and Goodwill's hip teen skinny jeans cost a fraction of what I'd pay in a regular store! Such a bargain.), and I was totally willing to pay $7 for the privilege of not having to refinish the actual frame part of my menu board.
(I can manage to get that kind of thing done in the summer, but during the school year, I just have a hard time getting sanding and staining kind of stuff done.)
i love it im going to try it.
I should make a nice menu board like yours - I'm glad you were able to resurrect it. I just use a white board on the fridge, but this is much nicer!
So cool that you were able to reconstruct it.