Creating a Magnetic Wall Space for Magnatiles

I've talked about how magnetic tiles are one of the main toys we brought with us to Argentina because they're such an open ended toy and they're great for both of my kids. After four months here, I felt like it was time to change things up and add an extra element to our magnetic tile corner.

I wanted to add sheet metal to the wall so we could play with the magnetic tiles on the wall. After going up and down my neighborhood looking for sheet metal, I couldn't find any. I knew I needed to come up with a new plan because I still wanted to do this little project. I went to one of our local stores to find a good option. At first, I was going to use some baking or pizza sheets, but instead I found some magnetic bulletin boards. I got two of them at around $13USD as well as some double sided adhesive tape.

Originally my plan was to take off a piece to hang it on the wall and then tape the frame to the wall. Once I looked closely, though, I realized the frame is just simple wood. I decided to take the frames off and attach both metal sheets side by side to the wall. I pulled on the corners of each of the frames until I found the weakest points and then just pulled them apart, wiped both of them down and added the double sided adhesive tape. I was honestly not sure how well the tape would do since I had already placed it on the frames and moved it to the metal sheets once, but it held up surprisingly well. I also wasn't sure how well the tape would hold with all of these holes in the metal when it was flush to the wall, but, again, it seemed to hold really well and I was pleasantly surprised.

Once I had everything set up I made sure the wall was cleaned off, removed the backs of the double sided tape and placed the sheets side by side vertically on the wall. I tested the magnetic tiles and it turns out it worked really well! I added our ball run to the magnet boards and found that since the ball run has heavier pieces, it doesn't work as well when placed directly on the metal sheets. Everywhere I put a piece for the ball run also needed to have a magnetic piece to help support it and bear up the weight. My kids and I love playing with the ball run this way!

I love that this is a renter friendly version of how to do that sheet metal on the wall to play with magnetic tiles.