So far, work on the Little House cabin has involved a lot of staining, then waiting for the stain to dry. On Sunday I started by staining the remaining house pieces. This might not have been necessary since I’m planning to cover everything with shingles or siding outside and skinny stick “logs” inside, but I didn’t want any raw wood to show through.
While the stain dried (outdoors, because of the fumes), I worked on “dirtying up” the chimney grout. I’ve never really done this before so I just made it up as I went along. I started by watering down some gray paint. I then spread this over the grout and stones.
Every so often, I’d wipe the wash off with a damp sponge brush to prevent it from drying on the stones. I went over the whole thing a couple of times, making sure the stones themselves didn’t end up painted.
The first wash was a bit too light, so I mixed in some darker gray paint and repeated the whole process. Here’s what I ended up with. Not sure it’s realistic, but it’ll do. After taking the photo below, I painted the whole chimney with matte varnish to protect it.