What to use to paint lime plaster and ordinary plaster?

[Hatster]

Hello folks, and happy New Year!

We actually got on with doing some work to our house, which has kept me properly occupied and off the forums for the last few months. However, I'm now back with questions.

Our newly replastered dining room now has two walls with lime plaster, and two with ordinary plaster.

Can I use Earthborn's claypaint to paint both the lime plaster and the ordinary plaster walls? Does anyone have experience of using it on lime plaster? My plasterers haven't come across it before and are feeling rather dubious, although the Earthborn site says that it's suitable.

Thanks!

Hatster

 

[JoceAndChris]

I have no idea about your question unfortunately, but welcome back Hatster! Lovely to hear from you again - though grrrr to prioritising proper work over idle chat with us!

And well done for getting your dining room sorted, I remember you posting about that before.

 

[MdB]

I don't know anything about it myself but others have talked favourably about clay paints in the past. Might be worth doing a search.

 

[skier-hughes]

Not sure about the clay paint, but I had the same problem to overcome and I spke with rose of jericho and they recommended casein distemper and so far the painting I've done on both lime and gypsom has gone really well, you cannot tell which wall has which finish on as the colour matches extremely well.

 

[Carol]

At the risk of sounding like an advert, I'd say again, go for Amstel soft distemper! We have a lovely mix of the lovely pink stuff, old lime and new lime in most rooms and this will cover both suitably with a lovely soft trad. finish and any colour you like. It has been on our bedroom ceiling for three years now and still looks as good as ... well not new obviously!

We got it from Potmolen in Wiltshire who are not online but do telephone orders, I believe.

We wanted to use claypaints but were advised this would not cover all types of surface equally and had frequent problems with cracking on old lime.

 

[piper]

We have used Earthborn clay paint (usual disclaimers apply) over the last year on a complete mish-mash of surfaces - new lime, new pink gypsum, gypsum "bonding", old lime, old gypsum - and it has gone on beautifully and covered everything. My wife (who is the chief - nay the ONLY painter in our household) now says she will use nothing else. NO smell, in sharp contrast to bog-standard emulsion; you could happily sleep in a bedroom the same day it was painted. It can look terrible when you first put it on - but be patient, it's fine when it dries. She says the second coat can give you a fright at first, because it looks even worse than the first coat did, but when it dries it's beautiful. It may seem expensive, but it covers very well so a container goes a long way. The company's green credentials have been questioned over their use of plastic containers, but she pokes holes in the bottom and plants tomatoes in them - using the lids as pot "saucers".

 

[DaveBrigg]

We have used clay paints, and can second the comments about lack of smell and ease of use. They do cover a wealth of sins; some of our ceilings are a mixture of new lime, limewash and old gypsum, and the clay paint covered the lot, even filling in minor cracks. However, I have been less impressed with their performance on the walls. Upstairs it is fine, but downstairs, where there are still some damp issues, it has flaked or become patchy, with a slightly dusty texture that can be brushed off. Perhaps it's our walls to blame, but I understood breathable to mean that any damp would pass through and evaporate, rather than cause the paint to lift.

 

[Hatster]

Hmm - thanks very much for that range of opinions! It seems that Claypaint may not be the best way to go as we are still dealing with damp patches at the moment. I shall check out some of the other options and let you know what we go for and how well it works.

 

[Hatster]

Tester pots of casein distemper will be arriving from Rose of Jericho shortly - we will see how it goes!