Process:

LINKS FOR EVERYTHING

Step 1: Set up & choosing color

I ordered all the supplies off Amazon. I went to Home Depot and they didn’t have any lime paint, so it is a specialty that might be harder to find somewhere else as an fyi. I love the brand I went with because if you go to their website, they have a gallery where you can see every single color they offer and how it turned out in a specific room.

I went with the color Soft Taupe and I love love love how it turned out. At first it looked a little gray, but dries more on the soft brown side + with brown and wood accents it pulls the brown perfectly, but I’m sure with gray accents it would pull gray more—it’s just the perfect color.

Tape the trim and sides of your walls. It’s a lot more difficult to paint by the trim since the trim brush will be darker, so I highly recommend spending a lot of time taping so it is easy to paint over and get good lines.

Step 2: prime

The key is a lime wash primer (I’ll link), because that’s what the lime wash sticks to. You prime the walls like normal paint: a trim brush and a roller is what I used and it’s like normal paint.

Step 3: lime wash

You have to be READY to commit because it dries soooo fast and when you go back over it you can see where you did. So depending on how big of a space it’s really nice to have two people doing it at the same time. The lime wash is watery—almost like chocolate milk. So a little bit goes a LONG way. I probably used 1/4th of a gallon for my office of the lime wash but probably 3/4th of the primer.

I used a primer brush & a block brush for the l lime washing process. The primer brush lays it on a lot thicker, so you really want to put on less than you think and brush it out instead of moving really slow and laying it on thick.

I started by painting big X’s then adding more crosses until they turned more into stars like (*) and then doing another one and connecting them. The biggest thing is choosing ahead of time how subtle you want it to be vs how aggressive of a wash. As you can see in the picture I posted, the higher part of the wall was gone over more than the part right above the couch. I don’t mind how it turned out different in different places, but you basically have to full send it unless you’re going to do second coat on the whole thing because every touch up you do after it dries you will clearly be able to see.

If you are going to do another coat to make it more of a subtle texture look, it’s recommended to mix the lime wash with a little bit of water to make it a lighter coat and not so dark so you lose all the texture.

The biggest piece is that you want the trim + the main wall to be the SAME amount of covered vs. with white spaces, so use less paint then you think and brush it out until the brush is dry and then connect the spots instead of perfectly going over it.

It was honestly so fun to paint and I enjoyed the process. It would be a lot more “smooth” had I done a second coat, but I liked the dramatic texture so am happy with the one coat and okay with the changes of places where it’s darker in some spots than others.