Is magnetic paint worthwhile or just a gimmick?

October 10, 2009 9:11 AM

How should I display my collection of travel magnets?

I have a large collection of travel magnets. When they outgrew the refrigerator, I moved them onto a couple of sheets of metal. They're now outgrowing those, and I am considering magnetic paint. My concern is that the magnetic paint won't be able to handle the heavier of my magnets. Does anyone have any experience with hanging a lot of magnets on magnetic paint? Or, do you have another good idea for how to display my magnets?

posted by lbo to home & garden (9 comments total)

What are the dimensions you're looking to cover? Sheet metal is pretty inexpensive, will hold your magnets just fine, and can be attached to a piece of plywood (or flakeboard or MDF, whatever's cheapest where you live) fairly easily.
posted by xingcat at 9:18 AM on October 10

Well, my parents, when they filled up their freezer, didn't decide "ah, we have enough meat and vegetables put aside now," and stop. They bought another freezer. Eventually they had six of the things in their basement. So I guess maybe you could just keep buying refrigerators as needed.

That's kind of an outrageous example (though my parents really did do that) but hopefully it will provide some perspective. You filled up the refrigerator, so you got a couple metal sheets. Then you filled up those, and so now you're thinking of using magnetic paint to cover the walls in them?

I get that you love them, but I think you'd be better off maybe choosing to display a representative selection rather than letting them take over your home. You could rotate them periodically so they all get their time in the spotlight. Let your friends wonder what kind of adventures will be up every time they come over. From what you're describing, putting them all up at once is just overkill anyway. Instead of being the friend who's been to lots of interesting places and probably has some cool stories, you become the crazy magnet person.
posted by Naberius at 9:24 AM on October 10

Thanks for the responses so far. Just a quick clarification: We took them off of the refrigerator and we would take down the two sheets metal and replace them with a larger area of magnetic paint. We wouldn't have all three at once. I think we would only want to have them out on one small wall in our basement game room. Maybe 8 feet wide? Right now the two pieces of sheet metal are about 2.5' x 3'.
posted by lbo at 9:30 AM on October 10

We just did magnetic paint. After three coats, it was able to hang light magnets. I don't know if any number of coats would get a surface to the point where you could hang heavy magnets on it. Gluing sheet metal to the wall might be a better bet for you.
posted by Addlepated at 9:46 AM on October 10

I may be missing something, but why not just use the magnetic paint around the current sheet metal setup? That way you're expanding your area without giving up heavy magnet capability.
posted by carsonb at 9:55 AM on October 10

Or you could do this, and make your own magnetic paint. I'm pretty sure if you used enough of those it'd work.

Seriously though, another option would be those magnetic whiteboards. They make those in huge sizes. A really big one will set you back a bit and would be boring white, but once covered with magnets should be pretty cool.
posted by cjorgensen at 10:09 AM on October 10

How about some flashing, which is long and thin, nailed to the wall with picture frame molding around it? You can customize the size, and the framing would make it look built-in.

If you'd like to go crazy with it, you could make a custom chair or crown molding around a small room by nailing the flashing along entire walls and then covering the top and bottom of it with traditional molding.

It is entirely possible that I watch too much HGTV.
posted by xingcat at 11:31 AM on October 10

I also have a large collection of travel magnets. Several years ago I bought this map for the basement rec room. My plan was to mount it with metal behind it and put the magnets in their appropriate locations - I just haven't got around to it. I don't think that the magnetic paint would work, especially given the thickness of the map and the heaviness of some of the magnets. I am curious to see what answers you get. Obviously I don't think there's anything wrong with being the crazy magnet person.
posted by candyland at 6:01 PM on October 10

We found a larger piece of sheet metal and just went with that rather than experimenting with the magnetic paint, which doesn't seem to be able to hold up to heavy magnets. Thanks for the suggestions!
posted by lbo at 12:27 PM on November 9