Toolbox
- Rust-Oleum marker board paint
- sand paper
- foam roller
- painter's tape
- foam brush
- paper towels
Photos
Fig 1: The taped off dry erase board
Fig 2: Using the finished board
Fig 3: The dry erase artist board
A little while ago, I promised in my post about chalkboard paint that I would do some projects with marker board paint and report back. Well, over the weekend, I bought a can of Rust-Oleum dry erase paint and tested it out. I decided to use the paint on three things: part of the wall in my husband’s office, the top of the desk I am re-doing for my daughter’s room, and a large artist-style jumbo clipboard. I can’t believe this stuff worked, but it did, and I’m pleased with the results.
First, I put the desk and the clipboard in the office so that all of my painting surfaces would be close to each other. I used blue painter’s tape to mark off the section of the wall I wanted to paint (Fig 1). Then, I lightly sanded all of the surfaces and then wiped them down with a moist paper towel. Once my surfaces were ready, I mixed the two separate containers that came in the kit to make the paint. I started with the wall and applied a thin coat of the paint. I then did the desk and the clipboard. At this point, I had 20 minutes to burn while the paint dried, so I went to watch a little HGTV. I repeated the coating process three times on the desk and the clipboard and four times on the wall. After an hour of final drying time, I removed the painter’s tape from the wall. The surfaces looked great and I was dying to try them out but the box said I had to wait two days before writing on it! I hate waiting but I did anyway.
After waiting the required time, I let my toddler loose on her daddy’s office wall after carefully explaining to her the difference between this special white area and the rest of the house. The markers wrote on it just fine and a damp paper towel erased it without too much of a problem (Fig 2). There were faint impressions still of what she drew so I am not sure how it will work out over the long haul. I will update everyone after a month or two of use. Overall, I am satisfied with the product but make sure you paint four coats on a wall. I think I would have had better results if I’d put one more coat of paint on everything.
Tips:
- The paint is really runny! Make sure you have a damp towel on hand to wipe off drips.
- Paint several thin coats rather than trying to apply it too thick. The instructions on the box say two coats is enough, but I did three to four on everything I painted.
- If you are going to paint on any type of color, paint a base coat of flat white paint first. Since the paint is so thin, it doesn’t cover very well.
- Make sure your surface is VERY clean and smooth. Any bumps are going to show through.
- Gather a few extra items you might want to paint in case you have extra paint when you’re done with the main projects. Once the paint is mixed, you can’t store it — I had to throw some of mine away because it was extra.
11 comments so far:
We’ve been using the painted on marker board for awhile now and just wanted to update everyone on how it is working. You can’t dry erase it if you leave your information on there overnight. It does come off easily though with a squirt of water. My daughter loves to squirt the water on it and clean it with paper towels so this isn’t an issue for us.
Thanks for sharing! I cut up some Homasote board to make bulletin boards, and the primer coat (Rust-o-leum Magnetic Paint) is drying right now. Tomorrow I was going to top coat with the Dry Erase Paint. I’m excited about it, but thought I’d check around for tips beforehand. Your comment about it not providing great color-coverage is good to know — the magnetic paint is dark grey, so I think I’d better do some ordinary white before the expensive Dry Erase paint. You probably just saved me from a frustrating experience!
I used the magnetic paint underneath some chalk board paint and wished I had put on more coats of the magnetic because it isn’t very “magnetic”. The dry erase paint should work better though because it isn’t nearly as thick. Please let me know how the magnetic paint works underneath the dry erase. Good luck and thanks for reading!
I moved into a new classroom this year and the white boards are a mess–tape, scratches, stains, holes…The paint sounds like a winner–any special place I should go hunting for it?
I actually found a company that had press-on covering that was white-board style–but came in fun colors including black. It’s $30 per foot, though and the paint seems like a much more economical alternative.
Melissa, the link in the first paragraph of this post will take you to an online source for buying the paint. I have also spotted it in Home Depots. Would you mind posting the link for the press-on coverings? That sounds neat.
I am considering covering a whole wall in my daughters bedroom with the dry erase paint. now that you’ve had it several months, would you recommend it?? does it still wipe off with water?
thanks!!
Kathy, I would not suggest doing an entire wall in it because it will end up looking slightly dingy. It still wipes off well with baby wipes and/or water but like normal dry erase boards, there is sometimes a faint trace of what you did. I would suggest that you either just do it below a chair rail or do a series of large shapes across the wall such as a heart, star, diamond and triangle. Make them about 3 foot tall and they should look really neat. Especially if you do it against a bold color so that the white pops out really well. Let me know what you decide!
What you have discussed seems to be a typical problem with many marker boards. I have found that you can clean marker board shadows easily with a mildly soapy micro-fiber cloth. Thanks for the input; I am considering using the paint for a wall in a Sunday School classroom.
I Found Your Site Brilliant. Fasciating,
Hi!
I wanted to paint my whole room with this and let everyone write on it.
Is this a good idea??
Or no?
Kelley, that’s a fun idea, but let me caution you against a couple of things. First, it would be rather expensive to buy enough of this paint to cover a whole room. Second, you would have a very difficult time ever painting the room again with regular paint, because you would have to sand off all of the slick marker board paint first, and that would take forever! Maybe just try part of one wall instead of the whole room?