After spending so much of this year’s vacation time surrounded by rocks- first in the U.P., and more recently in the Hocking Hills, I was aching to paint some. So when my client asked me what I could do in her family room to spice it up a bit and make the slate accents of the furniture and the stacked sandstone fireplace work better together, I suggested making the support beam and posts look like stacked stone. I had recently painted the entire room, so it was ready to go, and she agreed that it would look amazing.

I pulled colors from the slate and softer beige’s from the sandstone and on the first day layered random patches in a mostly horizontal fashion, and allowed the glazes to dry overnight.

It already looked pretty cool, loved the colors together. The next day, I painted in the mortar between the rocks, using the sandstone of the fireplace as a guide for stacking, and keeping in mind how a real rock wall would actually be constructed. Because of the span of the archways, the mason would have used an iron support beam- stone will not span a straight arch by itself, so I painted the underside of the beam to show that.

Lastly, I highlighted the stones, blending out some of the patchiness so that colors didn’t flow from one stone into the next, giving it a truer look. Satisfied with the look, I allowed it to dry overnight and went back to seal the work, remove the tape and put the room back together.

Cool, eh? Now I have to decide which wall to paint rocks on here at home. Dining room, or master bath behind the whirlpool? Which would you do?