Limewash Paint Stone: DIY Beautiful Aged Fireplace Makeover

Limewash paint is a beautiful way to update stone or walls, but there are a few things I wish I knew before we started the fireplace makeover.

Disclosure: There are some affiliate links below, but these are products I recommend. I won’t put anything on this page that I haven’t verified and/or personally used.

So before we get into the meat of this post I want to remind everyone what the fireplace looked like before this.

This is what the fireplace looks like now!!

Talk about a transformation!

It’s so much better than it used to be.

If you want to watch the YouTube video of this project you can do that HERE!

Aged European Stone with Limewash Paint

But let’s address the elephant in the room.

If you read my post last week sharing my plan then you know I didn’t achieve the goal.

This project just didn’t go as planned.

It’s not a hideous look, in fact since we finished this project I’ve found many examples that look like this.

It is beautiful just the way it is.

But I’m not 100% certain I’m in love.

At the end of this post I’ll share what we did that made it so that the stone isn’t as exposed as I planned.

I’ll also share some tips for preventing this if you want to limewash your fireplace and have some of the stone exposed.

So if you need me, I’ll just be scrubbing the stone until my arms are shaking trying to remove the dried limewash haha!!

Does vinegar remove limewash?

If you want to remove limewash paint from your stone, it’s possible.

I’ve been scrubbing the stone with vinegar and a rag and it is slowly but surely removing the limewash.

It’s not the easiest thing I’ve ever done, but it is possible!

How do you use limewash on stone?

Limewashing stone is actually really easy.

It sounds a lot scarier than it actually is.

Add water and then paint!

Now that it’s done and I’ve done all this research I’m thinking it might be a fun way to add texture to a couple walls in our home.

That is still to be determined, but I absolutely love the effect.

Limewash Paint: Supplies

• Clean bucket
• 2 Paintbrushes (small cheap brush)
• Plastic drop cloth
• Painters tape
• Stiff bristled brush (for cleaning the stone)
• Spray bottle
• Limewash
• Water

Limewash Paint: Instructions

Step 1.

The first we did to start this project was tape out the area with plastic.

We knew that the limewash paint was going to be very liquidy with all the water we were going to add, so we wanted to make sure our carpet and the fireplace front were protected.

We didn’t tape off the walls, but you absolutely could.

Step 2.

After that was done, we started cleaning the stone.

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you how filthy this stone was.

We took a stiff-bristled scrub brush and just rubbed it all over the stone to brush off large bits of dirt and such.

Then we came through with a shop-vac and vaccumed up all the bit of dirt.

I also vacuumed the faces of the stone just to be extra clean haha.

Finally we got a little tupperware of water and scrubbed the stone down with the scrub brush we just used.

Step 3.

After the stone was cleaned, we took a spray bottle of water and began spraying down the stone.

We sprayed it all down before we moved on to the next step, but then we sprayed the stone as we went along too.

The stone will naturally absorb moisture, so if you don’t wet the stone down before you apply the limewash it’s possible the limewash will dry too quickly and not stick properly.

Step 4.

After the stone was sprayed down with the water we mixed the limewash with water.

Initially, we did a 1-to-1 ratio making the limewash paint a bit thicker.

But quickly discovered that it needed to be diluted down even more.

So we added more water to the mixture until we got the desired effect.

Mostly, when it was thicker you could see brush marks and I didn’t want it to look painted, so we diluted it until when we brushed it on we couldn’t see any brush marks.

Step 5.

After we had the limewash mixed we began painting it on to the stone, starting at the top and working our way down.

We painted until we hit the 30 minute mark.

At the point we started distressing the limewash.

Step 6.

To distress the limewash we took the spray bottle of water, a clean paint brush and a rag.

We sprayed water directly onto the limewash and then began rubbing it off with the paintbrush or rag until we got to look we wanted.

We repeated this process until the project was complete.

Paint a section of stone for 30 minutes.

Distress that section of stone.

Repeat.

Helpful Hint Before You Limewash Paint Stone

Give Yourself Enough Time

I was so excited to do this project I didn’t even think about the fact that in Ohio in the Fall the sun sets at noon!

Okay, not that early, but by 6p it is getting dark and the house is full of shadows.

Shadows are not your friend when you’re distressing the stone.

It looked like more of the stone was distressed than it actually was because of the shadows.

So if I could go back and redo this project I would have started it earlier in the day.

Over Distress Rather than Under Distress

The other option I could have done is over distress the limewash.

Like I mentioned, we were running out of day light, so we decided to distress it a little and then just look at it the next day when the sun was back up and decide what we wanted to do then.

The problem with the plan is that getting limewash off the stone after it is dry is not easy.

But that night when I was spraying it with the water bottle it was just running off the stone.

So if I had over distressed it that night and then woke up the next morning and decided I needed more limewash I could have just added more over top.

You can add limewash over top of limewash without doing anything.

So this option would have also saved me a lot of time and work.

Instead, I’ve been out here scrubbing the fireplace stone every day for a week and a half to remove some of this limewash paint.

Use a Small Paint Brush

When I was researching how to limewash the stone fireplace EVERYTHING said to use a large masonry paintbrush.

So I went out and bought a large masonry paintbrush.

But it made such a mess and it struggled to get into all the nooks and crannies.

So pretty early on we converted to a smaller paint brush to help get the limewash paint into the grout lines and such.

Current Plan

The current plan is for me to stop scrubbing the stone at this point.

My husband has asked me to stop multiple times, but I simply couldn’t help myself.

But I finally have the stone to a place where I’m willing to sit back and watch the entire project unfold.

After we get drywall up above the stone, paint it to match the walls and get the BARN BEAM MANTEL up the stone will look different.

So I’m going to trust the process and decide if I need to continue distressing the stone after the whole thing is done.

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Have a great week! XoXo

Open Your Doors,
Aliya

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