Now I am thinking of one of my favorites cities! Thanks!

Lime washing could be a very simple and not too expensive finish or complex process (depending on the finish you want to achieve). The third pic shows real patina (a good finisher could duplicate it).

For the simple one all you need is slaked lime and water. Some painters add some salt. You can also add acronal and mineral pigments, too.

Limewashing is green and breathable (caustic when you are applying it)and can be used on brick walls and also stucco walls. If the mix is too think, it will show the brush strokes and sometime it can either peel/flake or wear.
Now, about that "instant" patina that your

I accidentally sent this without finishing the sentence, sorry
I meant "thick"

Thanks for posting the colored examples! Beautiful.

The one I posted is from a mostly stucco Mizner style house in Sea Island, GA. They used limewashed masonry posts to support a terrace and for the underlevel back of the house, which overlooks the marsh. As you can see, the limewash is very thick (which the homeowner and architect requested) but also loooks "older" than if you had simply painted the wall.

The entire house appears to be limewash, not stucco. . . and it is on the beach, not the marsh. Worth a look at the entire scrapbook - beautiful!

Here is a link that might be useful: Sea Island GA house

beautiful picture athensmom. Can you find out the color of that front door...it's exactly what I had in mind for our shutters. We are doing a lighter applications to let the brick show through a bit more. We're currently taking a hiatus as it's been really hot here.

Hi Athensmmom. I am wanting to do this exact technique to my brick home and was wondering approximately how much it cost to have this technique applied. Also did your painter have experience with whitewash?

Thanks!

I understand it costs as much as painting the brick when done like this house (3 coats - opaque). If I remember right, he said less cost in materials but more in labor (vs. two coats for painted brick). Yes, the painter my builder uses is experienced in this technique and I think technique is pretty important when you lime wash. Probably little less important when you go for opaque, but there is a technique to putting it on so it looks like it has worn with age (google Stan Dixon limewash for an explanation).

It is not a "fixed" finish and does develop a patina over time so if you want to keep the opaque look, this won't unless you reapply. Also, it does show water so after it rains or the irrigation system runs it will look much darker where the water hits it until it dries.

San Marco is the market leader in limewash. If you google them you can get lots of info and perhaps an idea of who in your area may do this.

We whitewashed our home. The cost will be about the same as painting, maybe a little cheaper. Like athensmom said it depends on the look you are going for. Our painter had no experience with whitewash (and he wasn't the greatest painter honestly). The limewash is pretty easy to work with; we practiced on brick samples and on the side of our house, below grade. We wanted the more patina look, and that was hard to do since none of us had done it before- so we decided to just do one coat and let nature do the rest. THe opaque look should be really easy to do.

We bought our limewash form US heritage and they were great to work with. They did a cutom color for us- their white was too bright of a white with a grayish undertone and we wanted a softer white.

Here's an inspriation picture ( we wanted the brick to show through):