Smear Coat/Mortar Wash Help!

10 years ago

Hi, we're planning to break ground on our home within the next 1-2 months and we have a photo that I found that captures the vision we have for the exterior of our house, but we're having difficulty establishing what color of brick and mortar we need to select to achieve the same look? We just went to make our selection at the brick supplier and we thought we could show them the photo and they'd immediately know but that was not the case. We just love the way the smear has been applied so that a lot of the red is still exposed. We plan to go all black windows and gables also. The only difference is my wife envisions more of a limestone color rather than white for the mortar wash.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

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PRO

Jerome DeMarco ART.chitecture

10 years ago

Hi Webuser, Your plans sound fabulous. I'm fairly confident that the effect you are seeing in the photo is done by doing a white wash over all the brick and mortar and then taking a dry cloth rag and rubbing off the areas you want to see more brick color. I would suggest you find a local painter that has used this technique in the past for your best result as they can also provide you with the correct paint type to use.

Best of luck on your beautiful new home. Jerome DeMarco ART.chitecture

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Comments (8)

decoenthusiaste
10 years ago
Chip Gaines of "Fixer Upper" on HGTV just did this technique on a recent show. I understand he is very open to chatting on Twitter (I believe.) He could probably advise you. Check out www.magnoliamarket.com to see the wonderful work he and his wife Joanna do. This before and after is a heavier coat than you want, but he'll probably be able to give you ideas based on your inspiration photo. Give it a try.

From the show...

This one says white sanded mortar
New Interiors · More Info

Here's another from Houzz
Trimmed to Perfection · More Info
HU-324060 thanked decoenthusiaste
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Cindy Perrell
10 years ago
Many of us have been trying to reach Chip to EXPLAIN exactly the ingredients for the German Mortar Smear... I believe it's White Mortar with sand already mixed in it.. None of us heard back from him and we know he's busy... :)
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texasboykin
10 years ago
This is a technique I am very interested in for my new house design too. I plan on using a native stone. I googled "german smear products" and there is a website that showed a ton of homes with this done. The showed plenty of limestone colored brick and stone done with the smear technique. It is beautiful but more subtle. Good luck and keep us posted.
HU-324060 thanked texasboykin
PRO
BeverlyFLADeziner
10 years ago
I believe you can select a brick that already has the appearance of mortar smear. You'll have to look around.
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HU-324060
Original Author
9 years ago
Man, I wish I would've received email notifications when there were replies! I completely spaced it and forgot about this posting.. Was just google searching smear coats again and came across my own post. Lol. Thanks for the replies. Hard to believe we're about 6 weeks from completion! The smear coat has easily been the most stressful part of the entire process but the end product turned out pretty well. Not exactly what we had in mind, but we're pleased. We started with a mason that had never done a smear coat before even though our builder had told us his mason had done smear coats before we signed our contract to build with him. Turns out he used to use a mason that had done smear coats but he no longer used that mason and believed his new one could do it! After two horrible attempts at a smear coat, which both had to be removed with days of power washing, we finally demanded that he get his old mason back for the smear coat because we trusted that we were getting someone that knew how to do it. Finally we got a result we were happy with. I'll followup with some photos soon..
mooregraphix
9 years ago
photos?
PRO
Beverly Anderson Interior Design
9 years ago
I think pick a red brick color you like, natural/neutral mortar and then do the smear coats. Great look