Magnetic wall pixels

[marieC]

Woooooo!  I finally finished (kind of):



So I was inspired by Molliemoo's post here: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=358681.0  and thought that I'd love to have something like that in the house.  We have a curving wall up the stairs of the townhouse (it's the reason we bought the place, really) that we hadn't done anything with (too curved to hanged pictures).  It seemed a perfect place to do a moving mural of tiles.  My husband (the programmer) asked for squares rather than circles so it could be "like pixels".  I did blue and yellow because I was nearly paralyzed with color indecision and DH looked over a said "blue is nice".  I thought about staining them all different wood colors too, which would have also been cool.

So I bought magnetic paint (it comes in quarts and I had to do two, so $40 of paint) and slapped it up.  Magnetic paint is like crude oil.  It's crazy thick and ruins everything it touches, including the paint tray.  I had to use bike degreaser to get it off my hands and arms.  The magnetic paint is in about a 4' by 16' swath up the stairs at eye level.  It's also only sort of magnetic.  The magnets I used are strong, but they only lightly hold everything to the wall.  Don't expect to hang much more than balsa wood.





Then I kiltz'd (to tone down the black) and then repainted the wall blue.

The tiles are balsa wood 3", 4", and 5" square (about $50 worth).  I painted them gradients of blue and yellow from pure tone down to white.  Then I hot glued magnets on the back ($40 for 125).  I say the project's only partially done because I have 160 painted tiles and 125 magnets.  And the 5" tiles really need two magnets as they're a bit heavy.

Anyway, here's 120 tiles up:





So I spent about $130 on this (I already had all my own kiltz and colored paint) and still need to buy more magnets.  I'm really happy with it though, it looks awesome in all the different lights, even when it's dark.

The magnet part is nice because you can move everything around as you go.  Right now these guys are just kind of thrown up there.  I'll play around with them in time.  The original project used a painted metal sheet that hung on the wall.

[SewIn2Disney]

WOW!! 
That just made my day!  I love magnetic paint and you made it into something totally useful and beautiful!  I love how organic it is, and how it can change depending on your mood!  I can totally see you leaving little "notes" for each other behind the squares, using the magnets to hold them up.
Love it!
Clicking "This Rocks!"

[gravity]

This looks fantastic! As in like, I'm sad I rent and cant do this because it's amazing! I love way you did the gradient on the colors.

[Belladune]

how awesomely neato!  Good to hear your review on the metallic paint.  I've been wanting  to do this on my living room wall since I saw Mooliemoo's post, but I'm not sure how it would stand up to 3 kids 5 and under if the paint makes it only slightly magnetic.  Bonus here too (and with any project like this0 Is if you get tired of the tiles, you can always make more to change it up!

Gravity, check out Mooliemoo's post, because she's got a removable magnetci board she uses, so it would be safe for renters!

[leigh7911]

Yea! This makes me happy - yellow and blue are my favorite colors. It's obvious you've put a lot of thought and hard work into this, and it looks great.

[Molliemoo2883]

This is so awesome! I think it's so cool that people saw my tiny idea and played with it in their own way. I love the pixel idea and it really works well on that curved wall. I've never heard of metallic plaint, I will have to check it out. I'm planning on making some boreds as Xmass gifts and if I could use that paint on big slabs of wood that would be cool. I love the blue and yellow color choice. Very very cool.

[shan-E-bear]

That's a great idea! I love how it makes the stairway look like something out of a modern art museum. Bonus on it being constantly changing!