Happy February and Makeover Monday!
Back in the fall I participated in the Better Homes and Gardens One Room Challenge. It was my first time, and it was a great experience. I was one of the many guest participants. The event takes place twice a year, and even if you don't participate, it's fun to follow along and watch as so many room transformations take place. To learn more about it, just click on the link above.
We did a small kitchen makeover, and at the time I had really thought I would share our progress each week in addition to a tutorial on what we did. Well, I soon discovered my plan was much too ambitious. With doing most of the work ourselves, there were just not enough hours in the day to document our progress and share tutorials. Because we are encouraged/required by the ORC to share weekly progress, I did exactly that, knowing that I could share techniques and details at a later date.
I have received lots of DM's asking how I whitewashed our ugly brick wall, so I thought today would be the perfect day to share in detail how I accomplished the look with a clear glaze and latex paint, which is Benjamin Moore Swiss Coffee in Eggshell. I first read about this technique via Pinterest on this site.
Before picture.......a little orange don't you think??
I began by cleaning the brick with warm water and simple green. I was shocked how dirty and greasy the brick was....not sure what this says about my housekeeping.
I then mixed equal parts of a clear glaze ( I used Valspar from Lowes) and the latex paint.
With a 2 inch brush I began by painting the grout lines, working in small sections.
At the end of each section, I would go back with a sponge and warm water and wash away the paint that was outside of the grout lines. It's ok if it smears a bit.
It's amazing the difference in just having the grout lines painted. At this point, I let this step dry overnight.
The next morning, with the same brush and mixture, I began by painting all of the black and dark orange bricks. I kept my wet sponge handy so that I could go back over any brick that I felt like looked too white.
When I finished, my husband informed me it was "too white", and he felt like we needed to let more of the black and some of the less orange bricks show through. Honestly, I wasn't surprised and I knew he was right. So at this point, I took my sponge and warm water, and began to wash away part of the paint from random bricks. It is absolutely the glaze that makes it easy to go back and remove the paint. I can't say there is a an exact method to the madness, except to say work in sections, step back and look, and make adjustments where needed. Some areas I worked in a crisscross pattern, but again, it's kind of trial and error and just eyeballing it. Do it to your taste!!
I let the paint mixture dry overnight before I hung anything on the wall.
This project was super easy and inexpensive. Overall I would say it took me a total of about 4 hours, and cost around $10. I used the Swiss Coffee paint color as it was the same color on the walls and ceiling, but any color in the white or cream family would work fine. I also used this same technique on my mother's brown fireplace and it too turned out great.
I hope you enjoyed today's Monday Makeover. If you have an ugly brick wall, I hope you will be inspired to give it a new look with this simple whitewash technique!!
Thanks for stopping by!
Julie