Do you have bright red school house brick in your home? The kind that gives you flashbacks of the trauma of recess?

I did too.

It was bright red with smoke stains from the fireplace even after MANY cleanings. I lived with it for about a year and just could not look at it any longer.

We decided to whitewash and LOVE how it came out.

Don’t get me wrong: I love brick. And I really love natural brick. I would prefer not to do anything to it and let it’s natural beauty shine through.

Unfortunately, our brick really lacked in the “natural beauty” area.

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Whitewash is an awesome option for that red, red brick because you still get that natural brick feel while covering up some of the ugly.

It refreshes the room while being an inexpensive, quick and easy DIY project.

Please know that once you paint brick it’s reaaaalllllyyy hard to remove it. There’s really no going back, unless you want to spend hours with a stripper.

I mean a paint stripper. 😆

Seriously, take your time to make your decision. Mull it over, daydream, hang a picture of it in the room and make sure it’s what you want.

But once you know, just do it. It’s your home and if you don’t love something, change it. You have to live there and you should love it.

Follow along below for step by step instructions, tips and tricks for whitewashing your brick.

How to Whitewash Brick

1. Clean the brick

Like anything else in your house, your brick will collect dirt and dust as well as smoke stains if it’s surrounding a fireplace. You want to clean it before you paint.

If you skip this step, that dirt will be embeded forever under the paint and will show up as dark areas on your bricks. You’ll also have a mess on your hands while painting as it will stick to the paint, paint brushes, rags and so on.

What you’ll need:

• Dropcloths or old towels to protect your floors
• Scrub brush
• Bucket of warm soapy water
• Step stool (as needed)
• Optional: spray bottle, white vinegar & water

Lay out your dropcloths to protect your floors and any other surfaces.

Dip your scrub brush in the bucket and scrub your bricks, working in sections from top to bottom. Put some elbow grease into it and change out the dirty water as needed.

Alternatively, you could fill a spray bottle with a solution of half water, half vinegar, spray that onto the brick and clean with scrub brush.

Allow the brick to dry completely.

This may take some time. Consider cleaning the day before you’re going to whitewash.

2. Prepare your supplies

What you’ll need:

• white paint (NOT oil-based)
• paint bucket
• paint brush
• old rags
• gloves
• Measuring cups
• drop cloths
• plastic table cloths (optional)
• painter’s tape
• Step stool/ladder as needed
• paint stirrer

Protect your surfaces.

Make sure your drop cloths are still in place and protecting your floors and furniture as needed.

Consider moving any furniture out of the way to avoid any accidental spills. Use your painter’s tape around the brick to protect the surrounding area.

We didn’t have any drop cloths at this point so we improvised. Plastic table cloth’s from your local dollar store work really well in a pinch (are are inexpensive).

This worked wonders for us as we were able to just tape them up over our built-ins, leaving everything on the shelves, and it was all protected. I layed a few on the floor as well and then laid some old towels over them.

If you do go this route, be sure to use them multiple times. Single-use plastics (and plastics in general) are terrible for the environment. Be kind to the earth and use drop cloths if you have them.

Mix your paint.

Dilute your white paint with water. Your ratio of paint to water will determine how thick the paint is and how much brick shows through.

1 part paint to 3 parts water: very light coverage
1 part paint to 2 parts water: light coverage
1 part paint to 1 part water: good coverage
2 parts paint to 1 part water: thick coverage
3 parts paint to 1 part water: very thick coverage

I used 1 part paint to 2 parts water for light coverage. I found that this ratio covered up that ugly red but still lets that natural brick shine through, which is exactly what I wanted.

Mix well with a paint stirrer.

Test the paint on a very small area of brick and decide if you like it. If you don’t like it, you can add more water (for lighter coverage) or paint (for more coverage) as necessary.

Measure the amount you add so you can duplicate the mixture (more on this below).

Remember that you can always add more paint, but it is VERY difficult to remove the paint once it’s already on there, so starting with a mix for lighter coverage is a great idea. You can always add more paint if you desire.

(It’s the same concept as when you’re making a salad: you just put a little dressing in at a time because it’s easy to just add more dressing if you need it but you can’t take it away once it’s there.)

Maintain a consistent dilution.

IMPORTANT: You want the same dilution throughout the entire painting process, or one section will be darker than the next.
(I speak from experience here!)

You could either:

1. Mix up a large batch of paint for the entire project
2. Use inexpensive measuring cups (you can also get these at the dollar store) and measure out your ratio of paint to water exactly, so if you need to make another batch it’ll be the same consistency

You won’t regret it.

If you look closely at my “after” picture above you can see where I made this mistake. It isn’t so noticable in real life but it ALWAYS shows up in pictures.

It worked out in the end as we mounted our TV and built a mantle, so the different areas actually make it look more natural and interesting, but be careful here. Learn from my mistakes.

3. Paint the brick

Fill your paint bucket with a small amount of paint (having less paint in your bucket means if it spills, there’s less paint to clean up 😬).

Using your paint brush, paint your whitewash onto the brick and immediately use your rag to blot the paint up.

Work in small sections.

As mentioned earlier, start with a small section to test the consistency of your paint. Make sure you are happy with it before proceeding with the entire fireplace (you can’t easily undo it!).

Once you’re happy with your mixture, continue working in small sections of just a few bricks at a time, painting and blotting.

Be aware that your paint mixture will be a liquid consistency and may drip as you paint. Make sure that any drips are blotted up immediately as they will dry quickly.

Get in the mortar.

While relieving the brick of the redness is a huge improvement in itself, having white mortar completely transforms your fireplace.

It makes it look clean, bright, fresh, updated and more contemporary. I was shocked at what a change painting the mortar made.

Make sure when you’re painting that you get that paint in the mortar.

An easy way to do it is for each section of a couple bricks, paint the mortar surrounding your few bricks first and then paint the actual brick. This will give you an outline and you’ll know that all sides of the mortar were painted.

Use different patterns.

Painting each brick differently will make it look more natural, like the bricks faded with time.

For example, you could paint the outer edges for one, the middle section for another, just the left or right side, and so on.

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You can further make each brick unique by using different techniques to blot up the paint.

You can just press your rag to the brick and release, you could blot several times, you could rub the paint on the brick or do circular motions.

Try out different things, get creative and make it your own.

Paint all edges of bricks.

This may be obvious, but be sure to whitewash any sides of the brick that are visible. To have a truly finished look it’s important that the entire brick surface is whitewashed and cohesive.

In our case, we had a row of bricks peaking out from above the molding. If we didn’t whitewash this it would have looked unfinished. Same goes for the sides of your brick if they’re showing along your wall or bookcase.

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4. Clean up

After your work is complete, allow the paint to dry completely and then remove the painter’s tape. This can sometimes be a tricky process. You want to go slow and steady, pulling the tape in the direction it lays as you go.

While you’re waiting for everything to dry, clean off your brushes and paint bucket with warm soapy water.

Letting them soak for an hour or two helps get off any stuck-on paint.

You can also put away your drop cloths and put your furniture back in place.

5. Enjoy the finished product

The best part!

Now’s the time to sit back and marvel at your work. You done good!

This was the first step in our fireplace transformation. We knew we wanted to add a mantle and fireplace insert and mount the TV to the brick, so having the whitewash done felt so good.

It also made the room look SO MUCH BETTER, brighter and lighter. It’s amazing how such a simple and inexpensive project can truly transform a room.

I hope that you feel the same way after updating your old brick.

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Questions? We’re here!