I am so thrilled to share this post!! One of my besties just purchased a new home and it has been a blast helping her choose decorations, paint colors, and even pitching in with some of the renovations! This was a really exciting project, since I have never had the opportunity to work with brick. She went back and forth on painting or whitewashing, which really in our case was really limewashing. There are almost too many opinions and ways of making brick white, but I do believe working with the lime mixture was the way to go. It only required one coat, easy application (just tedious), no blotting, ragging off, maintenance free, dries quickly, let’s the brick “breathe”, natural reaction, more dimension, and more natural brick qualities shine through. All and all I definitely think she took some great advice from her old Irish traditional roots on this choice!
Materials needed:
- Rubber gloves
- Short cheap stiff bristle brush
- The floppy brushes double the application time and are very hard to work the mixture into the grout lines and around the brick comers
- You will want to throw the brush away after using with the mixture or try paint thinner
- 2 lb. bag of granulated limestone
- 2 tablespoons of table salt
- 1 can of Helmsman Spar Urethane (clear semi-gloss)
- Can to mix
- Start with mixing 2lbs. of limestone, 1 can of spar urethane, and 2 tablespoons of salt
- Add limestone to desired lightness
- If working on larger surfaces, you may want to make smaller batches to avoid the mixture clumping, or I found that adding a little water helped avoid a gloppy mixture
- If you do want more white, you can mix in some white paint or go over some bricks with the paint/lime mix for added character and different shades (we learned this on mistake, but it worked out perfectly!)
Before:
After:
And with the beautifully stained wood mantle!
Love the post!!
Thank you Brigid!
Wow this looks amazing!
Thank you Christy!
This look great! What color are the wall paint?
The wall color is SW 7044 – Amazing Gray
Did you have to wash/clean the brick before you painted?
Hi Jamie – I would just take your vacuum hose or a shopvac and do a quick run over to grab dust or anything that’s gathered on top of the brick before painting.
How big is the can of urethane??? Is it 1 quart?
I love the job! I would like to make it a little browner, more like old brick, would you know how to change the color? We live at the beach and have a used brick fireplace. WAnt to bring it up to modern colors. Again, great job, can't wait to start. you have motivated me to get to work.
Hi Layne- Thank you! I would try diluting either a brown paint or stain within the mixture. You also make two mixtures so certain bricks have the extra brown color for a really contrasting look. Just test it out on a unoticable area first. I would love to see pictures of the finished project!
You think this could be done without adding the Urethane to see how it would look without committing to the whitewash?
Beautiful work! I finished my fireplace makeover today. Instead of mixing the lime and all those other ingredients though, there is a readymade limewash glaze sold in home improvement stores. So fast, inexpensive, and easy to apply.
How long did it take you to complete? I was about to use this same process on my own fire place which looks to be a similar size.
Hi Lyndsey – I would give yourself 3 days. 2 to apply, let dry and then spot check the next day if you want to add hints or diluted white paint to areas.
Will the urethane yellow over time? I've had trouble with that when using urethane on wood, instead I've used polyacrylic. Do you think the polyacrylic would work?
On each side if our garage we have brick. Would this technique work for outside also?
Hi Tammy – I think it would do fine outside as well.
I love this. I have a massive two way fireplace w with similar brick, but with black mortar. How do you think this would work with mortar?
I am thinking you may just have to get a small brush and do extra coats on the black mortar? idk!!
Fantastic! Thank you for the info!
Hello! Just wanted to know how it held up since its a little over a year later? We are purchasing a home that has a front brick exterior, and we are wanting to limewash! In all the other tutorials it calls for hydrated lime Type S that is in the like masonry section, not the lawn section. Basically, I can’t find the hydrated lime (illegal to sell in Tennessee), and am SO HAPPY to have found your post saying you all used a different (and cheaper) type of lime with success!! As mentioned above, did it yellow at all with the urethane? Can you share where you found this tutorial? Any advice for how to do this, but on an exterior would be greatly appreciated! Thanks so much!!!
Can any one help we have a brick fire places the cement is black and want it back to normal as re doing front room I do like the white wash but we were thinking of keeping red brick but so want to up date it
I’ve been told that the line continues to destroy the brick over time. I’ve seen a house where they Age The Brick and after several years the brick had to be replaced because it was in such bad shape. On another note painting The Brick causes the brick to not breathe and also makes it’s wet and a lot of times the paint will peel and has to be repainted. Please let me know if anybody has had these results as my husband will not allow me to paint any of the brick. Staining all of the brick in this house is an overwhelming task I really don’t want to take on and would love to use the lime wash but I said earlier brick masons have told me and I’ve seen with my own eyes however years the brick gets destroyed. Any other suggestions?
I painted my exterior brick three years ago. Still looks awesome. There are exterior paints specifically for brick, which is what the contractor uaed. No chipping, no peeling. Looks as good today as it did 3 years Go.
Looks great. Just to clarify. You just painted it on and didn’t have to wipe any off?
Looks great! We are thinking of doing the same to our fireplace. And, I have the same wall color in our family room,,,,now I KNOW it will look fabulous!!!