Can You Paint Stone With Chalk Paint?

Chalk paint is one of those paints that seemingly works on everything. but how far can we push this, if you were to paint stone with chalk paint would it work? Well, let’s find out.

The Test

So in order to know whether you can or can’t use chalk paint on stone I need to test it. Luckily I have a pile of stone up at the workshop. So I grabbed a piece of stone out of the pile and got to painting.

Here is the stone, all golden and ready to be painted. The paint I will be using for this test is the Rustoleum chalk paint. This is the same paint I used in my other chalk paint tests.

If you are interested in any of the other chalk paint tests you can find a link to them all here.

Painting The Stone

The stone painted really easily. There were zero problems applying the chalk paint, it went on nice and easy. I just used a regular round chalk brush, but any brush would work just as well. This chalk paint is really easy to work with, especially when painting onto textured surfaces.

When you are painting something textured, like this stone, then you don’t have to worry about the finish quality. The chalk paint takes on the texture of the material really well and no paint lines are visible.

Above is the stone straight after it was painted. You can see how well a single coat of chalk paint has covered it. There was no need for me to apply more than a single coat.

Now you can see the paint after it has had time to fully dry and cure. There are a few areas where you can see paint lines but this is more down to my painting.

I just slapped the paint on there to get the stone covered. If you took your time you could definitely achieve a really high quality of finish.

Scratch Test

So now the chalk paint has had time to dry and properly cure it is time to see how well it has adhered or stuck to the stone.

For this test, I grabbed a large price of rough-cut c16 timber and rubbed it across the melamine surface. This is a really tough test to see how well the paint has adhered to the melamine.

I feel that rough cut c16 timber is a good test medium as it is not too hard but not too soft. If I used something really hard like metal then not much would stand up to it and the test would be pointless.

On the other hand, if I used something too soft it would never scratch anything and again it would be pointless.

So here we have it, the scratch test results. You can see that the chalk paint has come through unscathed.

There is not a single area where the paint has chipped or peeled away from the stone. Just the paint chalking up as you would expect with chalk paint.

This is a fantastic result and shows that you definitely can use chalk paint on stone, well for inside use at least.

In order to test how well this finish can deal with the elements, we need to move the sample outside. So with that in mind, let’s move on to the next test.

Exterior Test

If you are planning on painting exterior stone with chalk paint, and that is pretty likely. Then you will want to know how well the paint holds up when left exposed to the elements.

This means it is time for another test for our plucky stone sample. I moved the sample outside and will leave it completely exposed to the Lancashire weather, a real test of its mettle!

The stone is now with its brethren, lots of other samples painted with chalk paint. Including tiles, melamine and even a lampshade!

The sample hasn’t been outside long enough yet for there to be any meaningful results. Make sure you check back soon to get the results.

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