Brick and limewash
Painting brick, and limewashing it
Painting brick is close to permanent. Limewash isn't, and it lets the wall breathe. We can help you compare the two finishes for your brickwork.
Choosing paint or limewash
Brick is one of the few surfaces where the choice is close to irreversible. Once a masonry paint film is on there and keyed into the face of the brick, getting it off means chemical stripping or blasting, both of which are expensive and both of which can eat the brick face while they're at it.
Consider the finish carefully before deciding. If what you want is a lighter, softer house that still reads as brick, limewash is probably your answer. If what you want is a flat, solid, modern colour with no brick showing through at all, that's paint, and it's a commitment.
Limewash
Limewash soaks into the brick instead of sitting on top of it. It leaves the texture and the joints visible, it goes patchy and soft in a way people either love or hate, and it weathers by gradually thinning rather than by peeling.
The advantage that matters most on an old house is breathability. Solid brick walls, which is most of what was built here before the war, have no cavity and no damp course worth relying on. They handle moisture by letting it move through and evaporate off the outside. Seal that face with an impermeable film and the water finds somewhere else to go, usually inward, and you get damp on the inside of an exterior wall and salt damage in the brick itself.
Limewash also comes off, slowly, if you decide against it. Paint doesn't.
Painting brick
Where paint makes sense is a cavity-brick house from the 1960s onwards, brickwork that's already been painted by someone else, or a wall that's been patched with mismatched bricks and is never going to look right bare.
It needs a masonry system: a sealer that soaks in and binds the surface, then two coats of a paint rated to let some vapour through, not a general-purpose exterior. On a wall that's never been coated, the first coat mostly disappears into it, which is why a brick job takes more paint than the wall area suggests.
What has to be fixed first
Efflorescence. The white crusty bloom on brick is salt coming out of the wall with moisture behind it. Painting over it traps the salt, which keeps crystallising and pushes the coating straight back off. The salt has to come off and the water has to be found first.
Failed mortar. Joints that have gone soft or sandy get raked out and repointed. Paint won't bridge a hole and it won't hold on crumbling mortar.
Whatever is wetting the wall. A blocked downpipe, a garden bed built up above the damp course, a leaking gutter. A coating will not solve moisture entering the wall, and we'll tell you if that's what we can see.
Heritage overlays, which the inner north is full of
A good part of Brunswick, Carlton, Fitzroy and Northcote sits under a heritage overlay, and some of them restrict painting a previously unpainted masonry facade. It's a council matter, not ours, but it's worth a phone call before you spend anything, and we'll flag it if your street looks like one of those.
What affects the price
- Whether the brick is bare or already painted. Bare is thirstier and usually needs an extra coat
- How much repointing and salt treatment the wall needs first
- Limewash or paint, since the products and the number of passes differ
- Access, and how much window, sill and eave detail sits in the wall
What to ask any painter
Ask whether they're using a breathable masonry system or a standard exterior paint, and ask why. Ask what they're doing about efflorescence rather than over it. Ask whether they've found the source of any damp. If you are unsure whether coating the brick is suitable, ask us to assess it first.
The rest of the outside is on the exterior painting page, and painted brick indoors, which behaves completely differently, is covered on feature walls.
Preparation and aftercare
Read our painting preparation and aftercare guide for arranging access, protecting belongings and checking when the painted surface is ready to use or clean.
Not sure whether to paint it?
Send a photo of the wall and a close-up of the mortar. We'll tell you what it needs, including when the answer is to leave it alone.
Free quote