Cork Board and Key Caddy Makeover!

I’ve had this little pine cork board my grandparents’ made for many years now. It comes with the added perk of also being a key caddy so, of course, we put it right by our front door. It really comes in handy! However, it doesn’t exactly mesh with the look we have going throughout our entryway. Varnished knotty pine in that gold color is really not our style so its been on my list for awhile now to give it a little makeover!

I decided an entire coat of white paint was where I would begin but, first, I had to sand it thoroughly to get all that varnish off of there. The varnish would absolutely bleed through almost any white paint! I took it outside after that and did three coats of Rustoleum high gloss white spray paint.

I used Rustoleum for this project because its oil based and will give us a tougher paint for the tacks we’ll be using on the cork board. Rustoleum will also help stop any bleed through of the old varnish I might have missed when I sanded the whole thing down. I’m not a big “clutter” person. Lodi would have our whole refrigerator covered! But I can’t accuse him of being cool with clutter either honestly, our definition of clutter is just very different… I JUST HATE PAPER!

To me, if you’re going to keep anything that resembles paper (yes including photos), you either frame it or tuck it away in a safe place somewhere. I go through our mail with the trash can beside me lol. It makes me so mad that any company would ever send us mail because every account we have I am signed up online and for paperless everything – it is such a waste of trees! However, I decided to dub this little cork board as the perfect place for such things so they’re at least NOT ON THE REFRIEGRATOR. And its a small space so that’ll help keep it contained and purged. Its a good reminder spot too for invitations and then I can feel even less guilty about throwing them away once the event has passed.

But just a solid coat of white on the cork board just didn’t feel like enough.

At first I considered a stencil but, honestly, I’m not very good at stenciling… I also considered modge podge and some pretty fabric but I thought I would try something else first. I decided to attempt to be creative with tacks! I had already purchased this 500 piece set of tacks for just having around the house because it was just weird how often we used them… Firstly I knew I was probably not going to get anything “even” enough for my OCD brain so stripes etc. were out of the question.

I decided a simple “sunflower” taking up about 1/3rd of the board in the top corner was something even I might be able to pull off! I think its kind of cute actually, and subtle (and mature) enough that I think it fits in well with our pretty entryway. (The cute little birdhouse my Grandma made and painted many years ago. I have several of them that I keep around the house to remember her by!) Huge update for such a little project!