How to Paint a Porch to Look Like Stone

Choose the type of stone you want to replicate on your porch. Examine examples of different kinds of stone work in books or online. Note the shapes of the stones, the color and thickness of grout lines between the stones, the texture of the stones and the colors that make up the stones. Print out reference copies of your final stone selection to take with you to the paint store.

Choose a heavy-duty "porch and floor" paint product. Select a "base" color similar to the main color of your chosen stones. Select any other colors you see in the stones, including one color darker than the base color and one that's lighter. Also purchase a color that matches the color of any grout between the stones, and a small amount of white "highlight" color.

Clean the porch with a power sprayer with the nozzle set to "wide." If the walls or floors are very dirty, use a solution of warm water and mild detergent, applied with a mop. Rinse the walls and floors with water. Let them dry overnight.

Paint everything on the porch that you intend to cover in faux stone work. Use your base paint color. Apply the paint with brushes and with a roller assembly and extension pole. Let the paint dry overnight.

Use a saber saw to cut three or four stone shapes out of ¼-inch thick tempered hardboard. Make the stone templates in various sizes. Model the shape of the templates on your stone type. Drill a hole through the center of the template and attach a cabinet pull knob to serve as a handle for your template.

Lay one of the templates down on the porch floor (or against the wall) and hold it place with a free hand using the knob. Take an artist's "liner brush," about an inch wide, and dip it into your grout-colored paint. Trace around the stone template with the grout paint. Lift the template away when finished tracing the pattern.

Take up a second template. Fit this against the first rock you traced, and trace around this shape with the liner brush and the grout paint. Lift the template away when done.

Repeat this with the third and fourth stone templates--and continue using all four templates until you have covered the entire floor and/or wall space with the stone outlines. Let dry.

Pour the dark "second stone" paint, and the lighter "third stone" paint in two separate paint trays. Wet two large natural sea sponges with water and wring them out thoroughly.

Dip the sea sponge in the darker "second stone" paint and dab off any excess paint onto the paint tray ledge. Sponge the paint into the middle of one of the stone outlines. Be careful to stay between the lines. Immediately follow up by dabbing the lighter color of stone paint into the same stone. "Wet blend" the light color with the dark color but make the two colors somewhat apparent. Don't muddy them together too much. If you feel you've overworked it, and you've totally covered the original base paint color, skip the stone for now and let it dry. Come back later and repaint it with base color, let dry, and try again.

Repeat this until all the stones are filled in with the second and third stone colors. Let dry.

Dip a third sea sponge into white paint. Quickly dab a little white color highlight into the centers of the painted stones. If you choose to place this highlighted area in the upper right-hand color of the first stone, place the highlight in the upper right-hand corners of all the stones. Let dry.