Oh, my gosh…the girl is writing a post! I am ashamed it has been so long since my last entry…nine months to be exact. I mean…it’s not like I have been busy at all? I surely could have found time to find a project, complete the project, and write about the project after dear hubs took a job TWO HOURS AWAY…and while I was pregnant, and oh, yeah…having a baby…and then recovering from a baby. Yup…no good excuse for slacking. :)
Anyway…now that we have that out of the way, let’s get down to business. Long story short: we are selling our beloved house to move closer to that job the hubs has. We love this old house – and wanted to complete every project to make it one stinking beautiful house. While it still is pretty, it is not…and will not be “finished” before we move. Case in point, the main fireplace mantel in the living room.
I hated the brick on this mantel – actually – I pretty much didn’t like anything about the mantel. The tile has grown on me. I remember disliking it a lot when we bought the house, but now I think it is very pretty. Probably not what I would pick if I were starting from scratch – but definitely something I can work with.
Since we didn’t have the time (nor want to spend the funds) to tear out the current mantel and start from scratch, I scavenged pinterest to see what I could do on the cheap. I found a link to this blog, and decided I would whitewash the brick to semi update it.
I really need to get better about thinking of blogging BEFORE starting a project. We were in a mad rush the week I did this: we gutted a bathroom, I painted several rooms, we fixed some major cracks – including some MAJOR holes in the ceiling from our beloved renter who felt it necessary to bang her broomstick up there if my boys were too rowdy. Lovely. So, it never crossed my mind to take process pictures (ok – I lied – it did – but I had already started, and didn’t want to take the time). Of course now I regret it, but…too late.
I basically mixed water and paint at about a 3-1 ratio. The blog I found said to make it 50-50, but I felt like it was too watery. The 3-1 ratio seemed perfect, and eliminated the need to whip it off, as well as making it only require one coat. So…here is the finished product!
I think it turned out great for what the point was. We just wanted to give it a bit of a face lift to make the house show a little better. Seeing how this smaller whitewash project turned out really has opened up a whole other subset of houses we have been looking at with interior outdated brick. I think I could like a wall of whitewashed brick. What do you think?
