Painting with chaux

I was talking to a friend the other day about how as you get older, you are less interested in fashion, or dressing yourself and more interested in dressing your house and creating a beautiful home environment instead. In my younger years my favourite shops were dress shops and my guilty pleasure buying clothes I probably couldn’t afford.  Now my favourite shops are hardware stores and my absolute favourite is Couleurs et Vernis in Nîmes, 4 rue des Halles, 30000 Nîmes, 0466673390 about twenty minutes from where I live.

This is where I go to buy my chaux paint, which is a lime based paint traditionally used on Provençal walls.  M. Georges Menard is the owner of the shop and if you bring him the measurements of the room you want to paint he will write down the ratio of lime to water and pigment that you will need and give you a sheet of instructions.

Chaux is white (the white wash that was traditionally used on the walls of English cottages) and so if you want a colour you have to add a pigment, which would have come from the ochre quarries in nearby Rousillon in the Luberon, photographed here by Guy Butters.

There are four different types of pigment, ochre, earth, mineral and what he calls pigments modernes, synthetic.  He sells it by the 100gms and there are sacks of the natural ochre on the floor.

The more expensive pigments he keeps in jars.

Or in these drawers

Labelled according to the colour

He also sells regular hardware items and is always happy to give advice on what is the best product for cleaning or maintaining your home (no matter how long the queue of people patiently waiting behind you).

I have painted all my walls with chaux paint, which you can mix yourself, buying the lime and adding water and an acrylic medium, or buying the chaux paste ready mixed and adding just the pigment.  I personally feel the paint lends itself well to the old stone walls of our house and it allows the stone to breathe.  It gives a non uniform finish which some people don’t like but it gives texture to the walls and the colour changes with the light, giving an almost translucent looking finish.

I don’t enjoy painting and decorating, but if I’m going to do it, this is the way I like to do it.

If you’re mixing the lime and water yourself, you need to add 10 litres of water to 4 kilos of lime, stir well and leave for six days (I’ve read that you can leave it for a minimum of 2).  This is called the badinage or whitewash.

Add 1/2 litre of acrylic medium if you’re using the paint indoors, or 1 litre if you’re using it outside.

The first coat should be white.  Then for the second coat add the pigment, the colour after drying will be about 40% lighter.

The pigment should be mixed with its weight in water and left for a few days to avoid lumps (I didn’t do this and the mixture was lumpy).  Mix this in with the badinage and stir well.

The paint should be fluid and applied with a silk rectangular brush at 12 hour intervals using horizontal and vertical strokes.  The thinner the wash the more you will see the marks of the brush.  Personally I like to use a slightly thicker badinage which leaves fewer traces of the brush.  For my kitchen, which is a strong yellow colour, I used two coats of thickish badinage with no under coat.

It is all very organic and you will soon work out what colour and effect you want to achieve (it took me 10 coats to achieve the colour I wanted in the living room, I got to know M.Menard very well).  If you spill any of the paint it is easily mopped up with a wet cloth and a bit of washing up liquid.  It is a natural product, non toxic and non invasive.  Why not give it a go and if you live nearby go and visit M.Menard and tell him I sent you.  Bonne Chance and whilst you’re there be sure to check out the Roman amphitheatre, no doubt the Romans were using chaux paint on their villas when they lived here over 2,000 years ago as well!