I've also seen Crayola brand tintable base at Home Despot. The Crayola bright colours are as ghastly as you'd expect, but you can use any Behr or RL tint formula you like instead.

i've recently used Tilano's in the dark brown. it was pricey - $25 cdn a quart but one quart (about 4 coats) did the job. i am still waiting a month for it to set (as told by the sales staff) before i use chalk on it so i can't say if it works or not. the nice thing is right now it looks like a regular dark brown wall in my kitchen.

oh - i didn't realize that it was $40 a quart on the Tilano website. i got mine through a local benjamin moore store. they had tester jars for $6 available and they will special order in larger quantities for you of any colour.

I used the Martha recipe to paint a chalkboard square for my son on a wall in a little nook between my kitchen and living room (about 26 x 30 inches). For what I needed, it was perfect but I'm not sure I could have painted a much bigger area because the paint turned very thick and muddy by the time I was ready for the second coat. I seriously could have troweled it on. It's definitely possible that I mismeasured the grout and added too much.

Pros: cheap; great way to use up paint and old grout; customize your color; it makes a nice chalkboard

Cons: not sure there is one since the thickness could have been my mistake, but would recommend mixing up a small tester batch first before painting a large area

What a pretty color pictured there! Good to know about Home D's I will check that out!

Yes! And I love them. I made 3 small chalkboards in the pink, green and white for my daughter in old picture frames. They look great and add colour to the playroom. I would recommend them.

used the martha stewart method for a wall in the kitchen/dining and it worked well, though hard to see in the picture:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3444/3182454353_c49a0bb6c4.jpg

I used the Rust-Oleum tintable paint. You can see more info on my blog here http://mindiy.com/blog/2009/03/19/chalkboard-wall/

Actually, I'd go with IdeaPaint, which allows you to create a whiteboard/dry-erase surface.

I posted about it here: http://odietamoblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/bright-idea-from-ideapaint.html

I used the MS recipe, over a million layers of magnetic primer, for a wall in my office. It works ok, but my walls are very old plaster and I think they are just too textured for a chalkboard paint to be a great solution at all. The surface is rough enough that it is hard to write neatly. Re. Giggit's comment about the texture, it does definitely turn *thick* fast; they say it's best to make one small batch at a time and work quickly.

I started out trying to use the MS recipe - but after realizing how much of time was involved (and how messy it is) I decided to go with the Tilano premixed version. I didn't wait a month before using it though - I think we waited about 48 hours. It's been great though - washes up really well.

The Tilano Chalkboard paint has such a great finish. My daughter and I painted her room the Divaberry and she just loves it- really easy to use too. I tried the Martha recipe but it just didn't really work for me.

what do you write on the chalkboard paint? I can't believe that this is popular. Why not just put up a chalkboard? I don't understand.