Limewashed Brick Exterior Makeover Reveal

A brick fixer upper colonial house gets a limewashed brick exterior makeover using Romabio Classico Limewash in Bianco White.

A huge thank you to Romabio for supporting our home makeover project with Classico Limewash paint in Bianco White and helping make our limewashed brick dreams come true.  As always, opinions are 100% my own.

Oh my gracious alive, y’all! We made it! The brick is limewashed, the trim is painted, the shutters have been replaced, the house is looking super fly, and it was worth every single day of this 2 month wait to share it.

Remember how the outside of our house looked back in October? Ever since we moved in earlier this year, I’ve always envisioned white brick with dark shutters. There was nothing “bad” about it to begin with, but it just didn’t quite feel like “us”.

I have nothing against natural brick. I think it’s beautiful. But I am a sucker for that European limewashed brick.

There is this one neighborhood near uptown Charlotte I love driving through because there are several limewashed brick colonials that I have been drawn to for so long. (Do you stalk old high-end neighborhoods in your city? Did I just admit I’m a little stalkerish when it comes to pretty houses?)

Robert and I just couldn’t get that style out of our heads. So now, it has a whole new look!

Gawgeous dahling! I just wanna pet that pretty brick and whisper sweet nothings to it. (And maybe I have…)

I can’t wait to take pictures of it again in the summer when the grass is lush and green and the trees are full of leaves again. Our landscaping still needs work, but I am so excited about how fresh and pretty our brick and trim looks now.

Back in the fall, I told you guys how we worked with Romabio to limewash our brick. For an entire month, Hans from Reflections of Italy came out to take on the job, since we knew this was something we definitely wanted to hire a professional for.

He’s an artisan, trained in Italy, and I learned so much just watching Hans work his magic.

Limewash isn’t a paint. It’s real aged slaked lime that is applied as one coat with a large masonry brush or sprayer, and can be instantly washed off to give you a weathered, exposed brick look you want. Different than acrylic paint or German smear technique that uses mortar, Classico Limewash paint calcifies to a rock solid finish so it won’t peel, chip, or flake off and lasts 15-25 years with little maintenance.

Hans and his crew powerwashed all of our brick first, as it must be dampened prior to application, and sprayed and brushed on the Classico Limewash paint, focusing on one section of our house at a time. Then, he weathered it using a power washer again to expose the brick underneath and touched up with more of the Classico Limewash paint to customize the look we wanted.

You can show a little brick or a lot of brick, depending on your style. And if you are not happy with the look at first, you can remove it within the first 5 days, which makes for a stress-free process to give you the look that you want.

Hans removed limewash from the brick where it would have naturally weathered from rain water around the shutters, window sills, and edges of the house. After watching him work his magic and how detailed he was, even up on the 2^nd story of the house and the chimney, I was really glad Robert and I didn’t attempt this one ourselves.

He is an artist and really created the look we wanted, but there are a lot of ways to get this beautiful limewashed look. You can check out Romabio’s how-to video to see another applicator paint and wash it off easily.

For the colors, we chose Romabio Classico Limewash in Bianco White (you can see all of the Romabio colors here), Behr Cracked Pepper for the shutters, gutters, and spouts, and Behr Ultra Pure White for the trim since we wanted a modern take on a classic look.

One tip Hans told me: You want to make sure you apply the limewash on a warm, sunny day because the sun bakes it to be a bright white finish.

I still can’t believe this before and after…

And of course, Robert immediately put up our American flag when the job was officially finished. Love that patriotic man of mine.

Like I said, our landscaping still needs some love. We had leaves stuck to the wet ground by the time I was able to take photos of it all finished, but I’m sure we’ll perk up our yard in the spring/summer when the weather is more cooperative.

I’m so in love with how much texture and character our house has now, and I’m so glad we didn’t choose a solid paint so that some of the natural bricks could still peek through.

Eventually, I’ll be having more fun with the porch decor too.

One of these days, I would love to rip out the cracking concrete walkway from the front stoop and create a brick paver walkway from the door to the street and driveway instead. Then, maybe line it with flowers. I’m getting way ahead of myself here.

One thing’s for sure, we’ll never get rid of our magnolia tree in our front yard. Sign of a Southerner right there.

On the garage side of the house, we perked it up too by painting it with more of the Behr Cracked Pepper color to create some contrast.

Even though it’s just a basic garage door, it looks a little more fancy now. Maybe one day we’ll replace it or add some hardware to it, but just the paint change alone did so much.

The backyard is still my favorite spot though. Here’s what it looked like the week we closed on it.

And now!

I can’t wait to see it when our crepe myrtle trees burst with pink blooms in the summer.

Last summer, we decided to start a little bit on our back porch makeover and then we pumped the brakes on the idea until we could make the limewash happen.

This is what it looked like before we moved in.

We painted the ceiling with Benjamin Moore Paladian Blue and swapped out the ceiling fans.

But those Behr Cracked Pepper doors with the Romabio Classico Limewash make it pop. Ahh!

I still envision so much more for this space, and I can’t wait to get out here to add furniture, clean up that wood decking, and maybe add a faux fireplace where that TV and mini fridge are.

The outside now finally matches the inside and is so much more a reflection of our style.

I’m so thankful to Romabio for making this happen for us. This is only the beginning of a whole lot of outdoor projects that we’ll be ready to tackle when it’s no longer 40 degrees outside. (For us Carolinians, that might as well be -5. Bring on spring!)

You can check out Romabio’s Instagram feed for more limewash ideas and see their other paints (they have amazing masonry paints and healthy interior paints too) or see all kinds of beautiful weathering techniques on Reflections of Italy’s Instagram feed.

And if you have a fireplace that needs jazzing up right now, you can check out the tutorial I shared of our limewashed brick fireplace here.

If y’all need me, I’ll be outside freezing my tail off just staring at our house like a goober. 😉

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