Hi there. Nice home. Yes there are many lime formulas and techniques to white wash a house on the internet. Does your brick have a smooth finish to it, is it porous? A way to test this is to run water over the brick, does some of the water absorb into the brick? Does the brick stay damp for a bit? If so then your brick will work well with lime washing. If not then lime may not work well on your brick. So test a small area first. I know this may be a bit bold for you but I would consider white washing the entire house. I personally like homes in one color. It gives it more of a classic look. Also it would like very nice with the different textures of material( brick and stone). If you feel that might be a bit too much start with the brick first and see if you like it. Start with thin coats then keep applying. I feel the stone needs to be softened up a bit. So add a few thin coats over that as well. I would personally go all white and add plant, shrubs, trees and vines next to the house to break up the wall height. Plus that would really make your landscaping pop up against that White House and give it character. There is a lime formula that is mixed with white Portland cement that a world renowned architect Ken Tate gave me that we are using on our home. I've done some sample walls and it turned out great! It sort a tad thicker than a straight lime wash and it gives the brick a soft edge. It looks like it's been painted 100 times. Just like the old buildings in Europe were limed washed back in the 1800's. The mix I use is 4 parts white Portland cement and 1 part lime, 4.5 parts of water. Should have a consistency of whole milk but not too thick! You can mix pigment in with any formula but we choose not too. It comes out white but with a very soft gray white. I tested it with the reverse formula and the lime was Greek white. As light hits the lime, light reflects twice as much. So the more lime the brighter it greats unless you add a pigment. Some people like some brick sort of bleeding through, however we are covering all our brick so that it's all white. If you plan to go all white, you'll need several coats to cover. Sounds like you are adding shutters, good idea. That will give the house character. Also make sure when you buy or have them made to make sure they are sized properly to actually cover the window if they were closed. Not too small. I would go with a dark hunter green on your shutter and keep your windows and window trim the taupe color. And other trim white. If you go the lime route make sure you find someone that knows what they're doing. The most import thing when applying lime is to keep the wall wet down but not standing water, after applying the first coat of lime, let it dry 24 hours between coats. If you don't let it cue long enough between coats you'll have crazing (which are a network of very fine cracks). And make sure it's done between outside temperatures 50-90. Morning and afternoons. Try to not apply it when the sun is beating down. You don't want it drying too fast. We are liming the house ourselves, I know it's cray but we can't fine anyone that can do it. Also if you don't want to mix this yourself there is a company called Roma ( google Roma lime wash) they have premixed lime putty formulas and they can also mix in your pigment of choice. Just add water and your ready to start liming. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

Tile line looks like efflorescence. The white on your plaster is most likely calcium. Treat the tile line with a solution of acid and water-about 10% acid. Scrub with a nylon brush. Lime and other soluable salts in the cement become dissolved and they expand efflorescence. It will eventually go away. For the plaster, it's a tricky method to remove the calcium and bring out the finish. It requires dropping the pH levels to allow the acidic condition to release the calcium. It will also bring out the plaster's attributes. The It can however make the surface a bit rough. A separate circulating pump is required to prevent the acidic water from damaging the filter equipment. Sequestering agents must added when performing this to prevent the minerals from becoming a solid and attaching to the surface or components. The water must be re-balanced prior to allowing the filter system to be used. If you know the brand of the plaster, you should call the manufacturer and see what they think about this method or if they have preferable way of removing the calcium.

Yes, it should remove it, but if the moisture that lead to efflorescence in the first place returns, so will the white staining. All told, I think your wall looks great!

Thanks :) We actually just removed the an identical wall on the right. (just hidden behind bushes in the before picture below) The walls and windows were covered with overgrown bushes. We are in the process of tearing out the small one by the walkway too, it is broken and almost covering/leaning over half the walkway. We ran out of stones, but will match as soon as we get more, and go across soon. We will be getting rid of the entire wall on the left at some point, (not retaining anything but our view lol) or maybe lowering it to reveal part of the courtyard behind it. Also, getting rid of the overgrown holly tree bushes behind it too, just taking things one thing at a time. Here is a before photo from a few weeks ago. We also leveled the yard a the yard a little better since then, fixed some sprinklers, and replaced some sod. Next up is to finish ripping out the small leaning retaining wall, replacing/continuing with the stones, windows (hoping for casement so there is no mid bar), low growing landscaping in front of the windows, and trying to scrub the mortar off the house where the old wall used to be fixed to it, OR painting/mortar washing the whole house. As mentioned in a reply to my original post, I could go modern, which I had actually already been thinking about, since this is an 80's contemporary home. I just can't figure out what color or treatment to do with the brick... Any more thoughts/suggestions/ideas on how to pull that off would be much appreciated!! Thank you guys :)