sounds like you've done your research.

have you looked at Romabio? not quite the schmear, but I think it's the look you want.

all natural and no smell.

I did see that product at some point. I did not realize they did a textured product. My fireplace is similar to the first pic so I want to reduce some of the larger grouted areas. It may be a possibility. The bags of mortar are so inexpensive compared to the romabio product. I may look more at reviews.

In an episode of Fixer Upper, they did a German Schear on an exterior. Maybe their website has info on how they did it.

Ugh. That's been the issue. None of the professionals tell what products they use. My absolute favorite is Emily Henderson's mountain house fireplace. It's the exact color and look I want. She refers to it as "plaster." And discusses her contractor mixing in the colors then just using white. Her "white" is not as white as many of the ones I see using mortar. I don't want it to be overly gray, but our house is more modern/contemporary and I want the stone to be less brown but don't want it to have an overly white/rustic look that I see many do.

Bob Vila published an online DIY article on “German Schmear 101” where he links to “Simple Set Thin Set mortar” in his list of materials. It is available on Amazon in gray and/or white and maybe other colors. You could try mixIng the gray with the white to achieve the shade you want.

We want to transform our stone fireplace into a lighter fresher look too. As you mentioned everyone online seems to have a different Technique and uses different materials. The one helpful tip I did pick up in my research is to use a gloved hand to apply the martar so that you have more control on the effect than If you used just a sponge. And then use a wire brush to further work your finish to get just the right amount of stone showing for your ‘look’.

My concern is getting the right shade of white mortar. Our walls are White Dove and I would like it to harmonize, not necessarily match though— I was thinking there may be a tinting compound to add to mortar? (i’ll have to google around for that.) . I will also check out the Romabio products although Romabio is a mineral based (lime?) paint product and would probably not create the ‘mortar, effect. Rombio for treating masonry comes in a limited color range.

I would love to see your before and after pics. Good luck! J.

Hi- did you ever German Schmear your fireplace? I want to also do mine similar to Emily’s Mountain House and trying to find what product to use? Would love any tips and to see photos!

twilliams448 I did end up using a bag of mortar. We never figured out what was used on Emily's mountain house. We researched and I used a combination of techniques from a few blogs. This was pretty similar to what I ended up doing (https://www.dimplesandtangles.com/2018/01/mortar-wash-brick-fireplace-makeover.html). I wanted it to be grayer but in the end, I couldn't figure out how to get it the color she used and all of the blogs and videos I watched used the white mortar. We were tempted to add a mix of grout in to make a different color since the components are similar but decided against it because of time and consistency. It turned out a bit different from my original vision but we are happy with our end result. We had some very deep grooves that we filled. I also wanted to see more stone through the grout. We could have kept wiping more off to get that look but it was a lot of work. You can see in the upper left corner where we wiped more as we started. August will be 2 years and we still love it.

Thank you! Your fireplace stones are similar to mine. I think it looks great!

Well done!