Samples
Limewash samples
A printed colour card cannot show you limewash. Not badly — at all. Printing reproduces one flat colour value, and limewash is not one flat colour. It is a translucent mineral layer with cloudy variation running through it that moves as the light crosses the room.
That variation is the entire reason you want limewash instead of paint. A chip averages it away and hands you the one thing about the product that doesn’t matter.
So we make the samples the slow way. Every one is a real 9 × 12 in sheet, hand-brushed with 2 full coats of The White House Blend™, by the crew that applies this finish on client walls, exactly the way it goes on a wall. Then a removable peel-and-stick backing, so it goes up on your wall, in your light.
Order samples See all twelve colours
What arrives
An envelope with your chosen sheets in it, a code for the credit, and nothing else. No catalogue, no fan deck, no brochure.
Price
- $6 for a single sample, any of the twelve colours
- $5 each when you take three or more — applied automatically at checkout
- $49 for the full kit, all twelve colours
- Flat $3.50 shipping anywhere in the United States
- Made to order, shipped in 3–5 business days
Your sample cost is credited toward your first gallon order. The code comes in the envelope. Order the twelve-colour kit and then buy a gallon and the kit has cost you nothing.
The twelve colours
Every one of these is a real pigment load in real lime, not a tint strength of the same base. Colours on a screen are a rough guide only — which is the point of ordering the sheet.
The brightest white we make. Cool, clean, and the one most people picture when they say limewash.
White with a grey cast. Reads as white in a bright room and as soft grey in a north-facing one.
A warm off-white. The safest choice in a house with warm floors or brass.
Greyed beige. The colour of unpainted lime plaster, and the most forgiving on uneven walls.
Between grey and beige, slightly deeper. Shows limewash movement more clearly than the pale shades.
A soft earthen mid-tone. Warm without going pink.
Pale, dusty, barely-there pink. Looks like old Italian render in afternoon light.
Burnt orange-red. The traditional Mediterranean exterior, and striking on interior brick.
Muted green-grey. Quiet rather than green.
Deeper, drier green. Reads almost brown in low light.
Blue-grey, mid-depth. The colour that most rewards the cross-hatch brush movement.
Near-black with grey movement through it. Dramatic, and unforgiving of poor brushwork.
Outside these twelve, we colour-match any shade for gallon and pail orders. A custom match is $30 and comes off the order.
How to actually judge a limewash sample
Most colour regret is not a bad colour choice. It is a sample judged in the wrong conditions. Four things, and they take a day rather than a minute.
1. Put it on the wall it is for — not on the counter
Light bounces off the floor, the furniture and the ceiling before it reaches a wall. A sample held flat on a kitchen island is lit from a completely different direction than the wall you are painting, and limewash is more sensitive to the angle of light than paint is, because the finish has texture.
Stick it at eye height on the actual wall. That is what the backing is for.
2. Look at it three times in one day
Morning, mid-afternoon, and after dark under your own lamps. A north-facing room swings further than people expect, and warm bulbs will pull a cool white like Chalk noticeably warmer.
If you only look once, look in the evening under artificial light, because that is when most people are actually in the room.
3. Hold it against the things that are staying
Floor, trim, cabinets, stone, the big piece of furniture. Limewash sits quietly next to natural materials and can look muddy next to a cool bright white trim. If your trim is a hard white and you are choosing a warm shade like Limestone or Clay, see those two touching before you commit.
4. Put up two, not five
Side by side, two samples read clearly. Five read as a colour chart and you will pick the middle one by default. Narrow it to a pair, then put them on opposite ends of the same wall.
What the sample will and won’t tell you
Worth being straight about, because it saves an unhappy wall.
It tells you accurately: the colour family, how deep the shade is, how much movement that colour carries, and how it behaves in your light against your floors.
It cannot tell you: the exact pattern your own brush will leave. Limewash is hand-applied. No two square feet are identical, including on the sheet in the envelope. Every sample we send is slightly different from the last one, because each is brushed by a person.
If what you want is a perfectly uniform wall with no variation in it, limewash is the wrong product and we would rather tell you now than sell you a pail. If what you want is the cloudy, shifting depth you have seen in photographs of old plaster, that is exactly what the variation is.
From sample to wall
When you have picked, the gallon comes tinted by hand to that colour, with the full application course included — brush selection, dilution, the cross-hatch movement, and how to recover a section that dried unevenly.
$50 a gallon. $225 for the five-gallon pail, which works out at $45 a gallon. Shipped anywhere in the United States. One gallon covers about 140 square feet at the two coats almost every wall wants.
Common questions
Do you sell limewash samples?
Yes. Every sample is a real 9 × 12 in sheet, hand-brushed with 2 full coats of The White House Blend™ by the same crew that applies it on client walls, with a removable peel-and-stick backing so you can put it on the actual wall. $6 for one, $5 each when you take three or more, or $49 for all twelve colours. Your sample cost is credited toward your first gallon.
Why not just send a printed colour card?
Because a printed card cannot show you limewash. Printing reproduces one flat colour value. Limewash is not one flat colour — it is a translucent mineral layer with cloudy variation through it that shifts as the light moves across the room. The variation is the product. A chip shows you the average and hides the thing you are actually paying for, which is why we make the samples the slow way instead.
How big are the samples?
9 × 12 in. That is deliberate. A two-inch chip is too small to show limewash movement — you need enough area for the cloudiness to read as cloudiness rather than as a smudge. Nine by twelve is about the smallest piece on which limewash looks like itself.
Will the peel-and-stick backing damage my wall?
It is a removable, wall-safe adhesive backing, the same class used for repositionable wall decals. It is meant to come off cleanly from sound painted drywall. On wallpaper, on fresh paint that has not fully cured, or on a flaking surface, tape it up at the corners instead — that is true of any adhesive sample.
Is the sample cost refunded?
Credited, not refunded. A code comes in the envelope with your samples and it comes off your first gallon order. If you order the full twelve-colour kit and then buy a gallon, the kit has effectively cost you nothing.
How long do samples take to arrive?
They are made to order, because each one is brushed by hand rather than printed. Allow 3–5 business days to make and ship, plus transit. Shipping is a flat $3.50 anywhere in the United States.
Will my wall look exactly like the sample?
Close, and not identical — and that is worth understanding before you order rather than after. Limewash is hand-applied, so no two square feet of it are the same, including on the sample sheet itself. What the sample tells you accurately is the colour family, the depth, and how much movement that shade carries. What it cannot tell you is the exact pattern your own brush will leave. Nobody can sell you that in an envelope.
Can I get a sample in a custom colour?
We colour-match any shade for gallon orders, and the twelve stock colours are what we keep brushed and ready as samples. If you are matching a specific colour and want to see it on lime before committing to a pail, order the closest stock sample first, then talk to us — a custom match is $30 and we would rather get it right than guess.
Do you ship samples outside the US?
Not at the moment. Samples and gallons both ship anywhere in the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. International orders are not something we can do well yet, so we do not take them.
Order samples
Twelve colours, real hand-brushed limewash, on your own wall in your own light. $6 each, $5 for three or more, $49 for the full set — and the cost comes off your first gallon.
Who we are
Thirty seconds, then stay for the podcast.
I’m Ben Lynch. I started LimeWash Pros after reading what the EPA had published about the air inside ordinary American houses — and realizing the walls were the problem.
Meet LimeWash Pros
Who we are, what lime does that paint cannot, and why the air inside your house is the reason we do this.
The podcast
11:33From Setback to Limewash Success: Meet Ben Lynch
Why I walked away from conventional paint, what I found in the research on VOCs, and how that turned into LimeWash Pros.
12:10How Modern Paint is Killing You
The VOCs in ordinary latex paint don’t stop off-gassing when the wall dries. What that does to the air in your house.
9:43The Carcinogen On Your Walls
Benzene is a known human carcinogen and it is in the paint on every surface of your home. What the research says.