All About Making Paint
- Rothai Mill
- 14 hours ago
- 3 min read
... and watching it dry...
You voted, and we listened... here's the first small batch of the Red Ochre you asked for!
But let me back up...
Now that we are in the "painting and decorating" phase of the house refurbishment, it's only fair that we talk about paint. You may have seen from photos that we've limewashed the internal walls (and the exterior of the mill). Limewash is essentially lime and water and it's a very traditional finish for stonework, internally and externally... Here's a little video of Chris cooking a bit of that... you do want to watch till the end.
But limewash is just one of the finishes we've used (and in fairness it was actually my mum, rather than us, who painted most of the walls during her summer 2025 stay). It wasn't appropriate for use in the bathroom for example. It also doesn't work very well on timber as entire slices will come off once it's dry. So we looked into other paints that will complement the rest of the build, retain vapour permeability where necessary and function well in their appropriate locations and microclimates.
The bathroom is the only room in the house that is lime plastered (and half tiled of course). Due to the moisture from the shower, as well as its location in the deepest darkest and wettest section of the house, we needed something that was relatively mould averse (which limewash is) but also washable (which it isn't) and retained vapour permeability like the rest of the wall, with the exception of the shower zone that was tanked. The type of paint that has all these qualities, and works well on plasters, is mineral (silicate) paint. It has a soft, matte and slightly powdery appearance, but can be washed. We applied two coats of Keim Ecosil-ME in white, which we decorated with a bunch of bog-standard paint samples from Woodies applied in a stencilled pattern around the light, for no particular reason except to make the bathroom even more "out there". Here's the result. The bathroom light changes colour (on top of having a built-in speaker) so this can look a million different ways...
But the real treat for me has been the linseed oil paint, which is great for timber and was also used historically, albeit with all kinds of lead-based pigments back then.
I started making my own linseed oil paint after attending NBHS's workshop on historic joinery repair. My first attempt was made for the kitchen. I imagine I put a little too much oil into that one, but because it was green it didn't matter all that much, especially as we had time to let it dry then.
I had to really refine it for the bathroom door, and the cupboard, as they were to be white and too much oil would make them yellowish. I think I got a sweet ratio that works well and pretty much matches the limewash. The ratio that works for me is 100g of titanium dioxide (I now make sure I get one that’s oil soluble which gives a much smoother finish; I found out the hard way, mostly because I didn’t know there were different options to look out for), 20g zinc oxide and 40g of boiled linseed oil. I make that into a thick paste and thin it down to paint consistency with turpentine.
I used the paint to make a primer as well by combining it with raw linseed oil and turpentine in a 50/35/15 ratio (paint/oil/turp)…
So I've made the green and that white, and last night I had a go at the red ochre. I found that not only do the different pigments require slightly different amounts of oil but the red ochre ended up being very different in consistency, somewhat elastic and stretchy. Feel free to scroll to the right through the gallery below to see how it all comes (and sticks) together.
I will be making primer out of this evening to cover the door frame (mainly the cob facing side) before I fix it into place. The final coat(s) will probably only go on once the whole door, including the leaf, is finished and primed. My worry is that with the current forecast, we might have run out of good weather to dry this properly in 2026.
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