Why limewash in an old house
Many walls in town houses from around 1900 were painted over with emulsion in the seventies and eighties. Emulsion seals the wall. The moisture stays in, the paint starts to peel and mould sometimes grows behind it. In Scheveningen and Duinoord, where the sea wind blows salt against the front of the house, we see it a lot.
Lime works the other way round. It lets moisture through, naturally resists mould and doesn't yellow. A limewashed wall looks the same after twenty years, just a little softer.
How we apply it
Old emulsion has to come off first, or the lime won't bond. We do that with steam and a scraper, keeping the dust down as much as we can. Then we apply a lime primer and two coats with a wide block brush, in crossing strokes. Those strokes stay visible as a gentle movement in the colour. That's the whole idea.
