Limewashing the farrowing pen

After an early start planting potatoes, I moved into the byre as the day warmed up to give the farrowing pen its seasonal makeover. I use limewash as it’s inexpensive, breathes, is sympathetic to the original lime-mortared stone walls, is mildly disinfectant and enhances the lighting in what would otherwise be a dark building. (And yes, when I say the day warmed up, I am speaking relatively. There was a cool breeze and it was slightly chilly when not working, but earthing up potatoes with a hoe under the sun was hot work even so. It makes sense to only do the planting in the morning and evening, leaving the rest of the day for other jobs.)

Among the necessary tools for doing a good job are a stiff churn brush…

…at least one and preferably two limewashing brushes, which should be strong, well-made and limewash resistant…

…a sprayer containing clean water, to be used in damping down the surfaces to be limewashed…

…and a 10-litre bucket of white limewash. This bucket of limewash is about four years old, but an advantage of limewash is that it’s unlikely to dry out provided the bucket has an airtight lid. The calcium hydroxide drops out of suspension and the water rises to the surface, but all that’s required is a very thorough stir before use.

Any surfaces to be limewashed should be thoroughly cleaned, but as I pressure washed and scrubbed the pen yesterday, I could skip that and move straight to brushing any remaining dirt off the walls. This revealed a couple of patches of crumbling lime mortar that will need to be replaced reasonably soon, but I decided to skip over them today as I haven’t the materials to hand.

The surfaces to be limewashed need to be damp to ensure maximum adhesion, so our little sprayer was put to yet another use. We mainly use it for disinfecting so it needed a thorough rinse with clean water before being filled. The walls need to be damp, not running with water so it’s best to spray lightly several times instead of of whooshing water everywhere.

The convention is that limewash must be applied thinly and evenly to avoid cracking and adhesion problems. However, convention largely applys to fairly smooth surfaces. With rough and pocked surfaces, like those found in the byre, I find it best to apply the limewash with vigour, using horizontal, vertical and diagonal strokes, and slapping the limewash into the deeper crevices. (The Other Half says it sounds like I’m painting with a dead fish.) Once all the pockmarks and cracks are filled with limewash, I switch to the second, drier brush and burnish off all but a very thin, semi-translucent layer of limewash. As it dries, or more correctly carbonates, the limewash absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and its colour develops. Applying limewash, especially on a reasonably large scale on rough surfaces, is very hard work and gives your arms a very good workout. Normally, I’d wear eye protection as limewash is an irritant but my last pair of goggles broke today and, it being a Bank Holiday, none of the nearer hardware stores/builder’s merchants were open.

I also use limewash on concrete blockwork as it adheres quite well—in fact better than it does to some stone—and looks in keeping with the rest of the building. By now, I was approaching the end of the job and was liberally splashed with limewash.

The floor still needs to be done, but the pen is much brighter, lighter and cleaner for having been limewashed. I still have the other pen to do, too, and the woodwork to paint. It never ends…

I couldn’t get the limewash brush into a few of the deepest cracks, so they’ll have to be done with a smaller brush later in the week. I’ll also have to find the time and money to make some lime mortar to repoint the soft patches and fill the worst cracks. Still, it looks a lot better. Oh, and a final point. I could use limewash with tallow as this has better adhesion and lasts longer, but I don’t see much point when I have to do the job every year for reasons of cleanliness. With the limewashing done, it was back out to the field to do more tattie planting until gone 7pm. I didn’t feel too tired until I’d sat down for five minutes, then I suddenly realised I was bloody exhausted to put it mildly!