Frequently Asked Questions

Our lime washes contain no petro-chemicals, drying agents, dispersants, plastic glues or wetting agents. They are a gentle blend of minerals and oxides, with a sprinkle of natural binder. This combination has been used to make paint for millennia and it’s what gives our finishes the textured, light-catching quality that makes them so beautiful to live with.

Without synthetic components, you are working entirely with nature. It might take a little longer but you engage with the materials in a different way. You get to know their character, watch them change and settle, help revive a technique that thousands before you have used.

Initially, the surface will dry over 4 to 6 hours depending on the weather. At this stage, although dry to touch, the paint will be a little fragile (and still easy to clean off). As the lime absorbs carbon dioxide from the air over the next weeks and months, it slowly cures back to limestone. Once cured, lime is a robust material that will stay solid on your wall for years to come.

Enjoy the journey of using natural materials. Enjoy the immersion into slow decorating using traditional techniques.

Troubleshooting

My surface cracked. What happened?

Two options (and possibly both): Your coats of lime were too thick. Be sure to use thin layers, let them dry thoroughly between coats and watch out for drips and high spots.
Or:
Your wall dried too quickly. Do not let direct sunlight hit your freshly painted wall while it is drying or for a couple of days thereafter and make sure the room doesn’t overheat.

What to do:
Remove the loose material with a paint scraper, sand the hard edges off and carefully patch with bridge and wash. Stretch and blend the final coats into the rest of the wall and allow to fully dry. Remember that lime dries ten times lighter so don’t panic when you see the difference in colour.

My surface is powdery. What happened?

Your substrate is not absorbent enough
Or:
You didn’t allow the powder fully hydrate

Or:

You didn’t use a stick blender to mechanically mix the paint. Both these steps are necessary to allow the minerals to bind together and form a cohesive mix.

What to do:
Because your paint has not formed a cohesive surface it can be wiped off with water and a cloth. Be careful to remove all the residue. Once your wall is clean again, revisit your substrate. Use a lime-safe primer, a thin coat of Lime Bridge and two thin coats of wash. DO NOT paint over the powdery surface or the top coats will not adhere to the wall and the stability of your finish will be undermined.

I can see filled cracks and patches in the finish. What happened?

Unlike acrylic paints which sit on the surface, lime wash absorbs into the substrate it is painted onto. If your wall has multiple materials with varying rates of absorbency (such as fillers, jointing compound, plasterboard, previous coats of paint) the lime will be absorbed unevenly and the patches, cracks and joins will show through. This is called ‘ghosting’ and no number of coats of lime wash will cover it. The only solution is to use a primer to even out the surface, then a coat of Lime Bridge to build an absorbent layer.