# Limewash



## Plushpaint (Apr 18, 2007)

Here's a little barn I been limewashing the past day and a half. It's a traditional "Cob" barn (cob is an old rammed earth building technique) that's been converted to a holiday home.

The outside is rendered with a lime plaster, over which I have been limewashing - three coats brushed on with a 7 inch brush and lots of water. You have to soak the surface before work otherwise it sucks all the water from the limewash too quick: its the only paint job where a little bit of rain would be welcome. (It looks a bit patchy in the pictures because it is still drying out)

Limewash is one of the oldest coatings known. Apart from being the traditional finish for this type of building, it is completely water permeable and so lets the fabric of the building 'breath'. It was fun. Smells nice too.


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## vermontpainter (Dec 24, 2007)

Thats cool. Nice job.


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## Purdygirl (Mar 3, 2008)

That IS cool!! I love working with that stuff, they use it a lot over in Europe. It becomes part of the plaster, you can just keep painting over it and it just gets better and better. 
Nice job!


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## FoilEffects (Dec 19, 2007)

I have done lime washes in houses normally over a coat of Marmorino to soften the finish. Lime is beautiful to look at and a little harder then regular paint but worth the effort.

I love this job, where is it?:thumbsup: You do very nice work!


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## johnthepainter (Apr 1, 2008)

plushpaint,,,,,,that is really interesting, and looks great,,,,im begging you to keep posting more stuff like this


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## Plushpaint (Apr 18, 2007)

Its in Devon in the UK. I'd love to do more of this type of thing too, but its fairly rare to have a building like this that is starting from scratch. 

Architects and county planners are very keen on the traditional materials for barn-conversions like this, from an aesthetic and functional point of view. But the whole rendering (stucco?) process is quite involved........each coat needs days or weeks to set before you do another one or else it cracks as it dries out. For the same reason the plaster has to be kept moist which involves lots of hessian sacking if the weather is sunny.

So it is more expensive than regular cement render. The exception is with this particular type of building which has the "cob" rammed earth walls. There have been many cases in the past of these barns being rendered inside and out with regular cement and pink plaster.......the earth "cob" core dries out and shrinks leaving a brittle shell of a wall with dust inside......not pretty.

Painting-wise its a joy to work with (lime that is), and I've tried to do the traditional swirly brush-marks as I was going. I think this particular brand of limewash has an acrylic binder added to make it set-up more evenly. If I get anything else interesting I'll post it up, though the credit crunch is beginning to bite with a vengance here.

For more lime info see Mike Wye


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## painterman (Jun 2, 2007)

Is the lime wash a factory made product...If so can you post the company name ...could it be applied with an airless.


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## Roadog (Apr 18, 2007)

Limewash can be made easily or here in the states it is also sold "factory" made. Lot of products out there. And yes it can go through an airless. Its not good on just ant substrate though. Not really good on old paint. Best on another lime surface.

Nice looking job!


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