I probably should have thought in advance about the fact that I wanted a rustic, weathered look in a room I had just painted in crisp colors in a semi-gloss paint. But I didn't. Instead, I read a bunch of articles describing the process so I jumped right in.
The first step was to "clean" the brick. This cleaning consisted of brushing the walls off with a broom and running over them with a shopvac. Next! I mixed the paint, which was the 100% cheapest paint I could buy from Lowes in the same shade as the white paint I used in the rest of the room, with water. I bought the paint in a flat finish because I didn't like how shiny the rest of the room was and I really didn't want shiny brick. Everything I had read said to use a 50/50 ratio so I did my best by eyeballing it. It was really, really watery.
I was a bit nervous about the mix, so we started with a test spot just above the ground in the back corner. I painted the wash on, and Dave followed me with a rag. This process had been described in every single tutorial I had seen on the subject, but when we did it the rag process seemed to just take off the paint I had put on.
We tried it a few ways: paint then rag immediately, paint, wait a minute then rag, and paint, wait, and blotch with a rag. In the end the rag seemed like a big waste of time so we just skipped it and slapped the paint on. I took one side of the wall and Dave and Twig took the other side.
And in the end this is how it came out:
To be honest I don't love it. I wish I did, because it was a pain in the ass, but I just don't. It looks chalkier than I wanted, and, me'h. I don't love it. Maybe after it's 100% dry I'll like it more. Maybe I should have gotten the paint in eggshell? We'll see in the morning!
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