Has anyone had experience with putting a lime wash with tint onto their plaster walls?

October 25, 2011 8:09 PM

I've just begun to research the possibility of using a lime wash that is either already tinted or adding a separate powdered tint as a possible eco-friendly method for coloring my walls but there is surprisingly little on the internet about it. Mostly, I'm looking for people's personal experiences with using lime and tint. If they liked it, how did they apply it, drawbacks and advantages, etc.
posted by zagyzebra to Home & Garden (5 answers total)

Your lime wash may be different, but when I was a kid (six decades ago) we used lime wash and the snag was that it came off as powder when touched. I think it was OK for a while, then the adhesive dried out; things may work better now. It was easy to apply, rather sloshy stuff, and made an attractive clean feeling. We had white and light blue color only, iirc.
posted by anadem at 8:20 PM on October 25, 2011

I wanted to do this to a brick house once, the brick was dirty and was going to need re-pointing some time in the next decade or so and so power-washing was kind of out and I came up with 'lime wash.'

'Lime wash' is not that practical: the 'lime' is lyme - crazy caustic, miserable poisonous crap. I found a bunch of recipes on adobe-rammed-earth-house-building-sites but ultimately those too were way more involved and caustic than I wanted to be involved with.

I went with "Thoroseal" that I let sit for a little so the grit would fall out of solution (could have strained it also, I guess). Looked good! Did flake a little for the fist two years, but held up pretty nicely.

This was outside, BTW. I would not think of doing it inside because there is no point not using just paint inside.

If this is inside and you want to get a little fancy, just look for regular acrylic 'washes'. I want to say any competent paint store could hook you up. Far easier to use, likely ending in far better effect. You could also look up fresco. That's a ton of fun, and can look great.

Good luck!
posted by From Bklyn at 4:23 AM on October 26, 2011

Another relatively eco-friendly option might be milk paint. I've used this brand on objects, with good results, but have never tried it on walls. The idea of milk paint has been around for a long time, and you should be able to Google recipes.
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:13 AM on October 26, 2011

I also came in to recommend milk paint. I've been in several houses with rooms painted with milk paint and they look great!
If you use some of the colors together in one house like the blue, brick red, and sage green, you end up with a country farm look which is cute, or you could just do white and blue or gray for a modern look.
posted by rmless at 8:39 AM on October 26, 2011

Thank you everyone, for your feedback. Much appreciated. Had no idea lime is so caustic. The milk paint I've heard of, but I've also read it's not very long lasting -- I'll have to look into it further. Rmless - interesting you've been in several houses with rooms painted in milk paint -- good feedback. This bears more research -- everyone's input has given me new questions to get answered.

At this point, I'm leaning toward a rich almost pearly different-shades-of-white layered venetian look for my living room, which resembles more a gothic church than a living room. But I have an entire house to do. And it would be nice if some of the rooms were less costly than others to keep the budget in line. I also want everything eco-friendly.
posted by zagyzebra at 8:58 PM on October 26, 2011