How to: DIY Limewash effect
I’m sure you have seen limewash all over your socials, in magazines and videos and anywhere else you go to look for interiors. It presents a vintage, rustic look that’s perfect for creating a warmer and organic feel within your home. However it can be a costly renovation choice.
We took it upon ourselves to scour the internet to find the best alternatives and techniques to achieve this look, without breaking the bank. So, where to start. Typically limewash is created by mixing together a natural lime and water. Lime wash is fundamentally made from naturally occurring limestone that has been crushed, burned and then mixed with water to create a putty. This putty is then traditionally aged and then thinned with water. With the average cost of this being £100 for a tin you can see why not everyone is committing to the trend.
After trying and testing various options and methods we believe we may have found a solution, using normal, everyday paint. Of course it won’t be an exact replica but its an easy way of adding texture to your space.
What you will need:
Paintbrush
Paint roller
Paint tray
2 tins of paint in different shades
Masking tape
Starting with the paint, you will need 2 colours, of your choice that have a similar tone to them, using a lighter and darker one. For ours, we went down to B&Q and had Valspar mix two colours, which we chose from Farrow and Ball, Light Gray and Bone. For a slightly cheaper option, you can always get one colour and then add part white until you create your desired contrasting shade.
When you have your paint sorted, mask off the area you will be painting and apply a coat of the darker shade. Cover the whole area with this, one coat should be fine as you will be adding another paint on top of this later. However, if you have a particularly difficult colour to cover up, you can do as many coats as you need until satisfied.
Once this base coat is dry, it is time to add some texture. You need to get your brush and your lighter shade of paint. We like to call this the ‘Cloud Effect’. What you will want to do is get a decent amount of paint on your brush, a wider brush head is better for this. Then apply the paint onto the wall, using random brush strokes, creating a small patch of paint, otherwise known as a cloud. Try and spread the paint as thin as possible in whatever direction you feel necessary. Once you have created one cloud it’s time to do another, this doesn’t have to be directly next to the last one, but the idea is to spread the paint until all clouds slowly join up together. Don’t worry about leaving gaps in the paint, as this is why we chose a base coat. You can leave it as sporadic or as filled as you want, but where the paint is spread around, this is what creates a varying contrast in colours and creates the limewash effect that we are after.
We have found this handy tutorial if you would like to see it in action. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxIC3G-5_Fw
We hope you have found this useful, and keep your eyes peeled for future DIY Tutorials.