The Kelly Moore paint company has a brochure featuring old fashioned paint schemes available for free in their stores. Throughout the Arts and Crafts period multiple textures were a feature of the Craftsman style homes. Usually they used two or three earth tones for the body and trim. Window sash was typically painted white and bricks left natural.

What about some sort of red (maybe an earthy red) matte type stain for the shakes, an earth tone sand or clay or something for the siding and natural brick?

I thought of you yesterday as I was perusing a home remodeling catalog in Walgreens. I read your post the other night.

There was a home with red brick similar to yours, and the colors they chose were stunning giving the home a historical look.

They painted the windows (not the trim) the same red that matches your brick (your windows are currently white). You could also use this stain color on your cedar shake. The trim around the windows and on the rest of the house was a nice goldish color. The body of the house was a neutral beige/cream color (something that you'd find on a meditteranean home), they had the posts in their entry way also painted this cream color - "missouri" above mentioned sand or clay tones, I think this is the same idea. The red on the windows was a really nice contrast to the gold trim.

I don't have the actual colors - they didn't list them - but you could play around with them a bit to find nice complimentary tones.

The magazine was a bungalow and period home renovation magazine - new this month at Walgreens. They showed before and after pictures.

What I would absolutely NOT do is paint the brick, especially considering you have the old style charm of the cedar shake - it would be a mix mox of old style and modern. I think this would take away from the character of your home, not to mention the fact that if you don't like it, it's not an easy fix. You also have to look at the resale value of your home. I would not personally purchase a home with painted brick, but that's just me, so I think you'd be limiting your potential buyers.

Nice home by the way. When you are finished with all your renovations, it will look quite quaint.

Good luck!

Thanks Kim CoCo
I think I just saw that same Magazine..

I think I need to do something more coastal since I am in Florida. My husbands family has a place in Maine and it is Barn Red..I just associate the red with Woodsy Maine.

Someone did photoshop some of my photos I will try and put them here tomorrow..

Would love to see what you finally decided to do with your house! We have cedar shakes on our house and will have brick - trying to decide on color to paint the rest of house!
THANKS!!

I was trying to find the Kelly Moore historical paint info, and I came across this website, it's a service that selects historical paint schemes for your house. It looks very interesting, and I like all of the examples of work he has done! At least it's a great resource of ideas, even if you don't want to hire a "decorator" to plan the painting of your exterior.

Carla in Sac

Here is a link that might be useful: Historic House Colors