Oh, definitely shutters on!! Those are nice, correctly sized shutters, and I love how you have them on the side, too. Honestly, with the pretty reddish tone of your brick, I think a nice, shiny black *is* the best color! I like lighter, neutral shutters, but only if the brick has a taupey tone to it. Since I doubt you want to paint your brick (although I *love* painted brick and actually painted the brick on our new build *shock*, most people don't,) I really would do black.

I'll be interested to hear what others say! Your house is lovely and charming!

I would just leave the shutters off, take the home back to it's roots so to speak. Unless you need shutters and they actually shut?!?

Black is classic, I guess I'm a bit bored with them. They do actually shut, but only if I take off the wooden storm windows. I imagine they were actually used at some point.

Have you considered white shutters? Or, a pretty chocolate brown, or a slate color (dark gray with an undertone of dark blue).

Your house is lovely!

Love the house, love the shutters.

I think the black or dark colors look best

Not so much a fan of this look

This is okay

This blue is pretty with the white trim and brick.

I could see going a little lighter green, but I wouldn't want to go too light. The contrast is good. I was also thinking blue -- my front door is similar to the one above, a bit darker, and my shutters and columns are white.

Hampshire Gray by Ben Moore is a beautiful gray green and is a historical color. I love the color! By the way, you have a beautiful home.

Thanks for the compliments. I feel privileged (and often overwhelmed) to be entrusted with the care of this home. I have time to play around with color possibilities, we're still in the scraping stage. :o)

Maybe you would find the black more interesting if you used something other than white for fascia and trim? Our last house was brick, and we used various creamy and taupe colors for trim, fascia, muntins. Including the porch ceilings, we had five colors but you'd probably never guess it.

IMHO, the formality of brick means that shutters can only be black or white. Especially on an historic home.

When we took our shutters off last time, I wanted to keep them off. I thought it gave sort of a more federal, antique look. Personally, that would be my vote. I would have done it on my house but the realtor preferred shutters for staging.

I will add that a brick house in our old town had black shutters on the bottom, and white on top. The top ones were louvered and the bottom solid. I actually though that looked very cool.

PS I have Hampshire Grey on my front door of my new home, and on the DR windows. It is a super color.

Thanks for the input. I agree, the pure white is a bit stark against the aged brick, and I have been thinking about changing to a softer color. We don't have repainting all of the trim in the budget this year, and I don't have the energy to do it myself, so we're just repainting the white areas where it's peeling and replacing loose window putty. The shutters and front porches really take a beating, so those will be repainted. I may leave the shutters off for a while and see how it looks when I get used to it a bit. I can always put them in the shed and put them back up later if I change my mind.
The color of the brick on my monitor is pretty close to the actual color, and I came close with Ben Moore Georgian Brick HC-50, though of course there is a lot of variation in the color from one brick to the next. If you were to choose a creamier white for windows and other trim, which color would it be? As dark as Putnam Ivory HC-39? Darker? Or more like Navajo White? Or is it impossible to say without a closeup of the brick and mortar?
It's hard to find color combinations for brick homes, most of the paint companies put out combos for homes with painted siding. The porch ceilings are Yarmouth Blue HC-150.

Saypoint -

1. I vote for no shutters. You have such beautiful brick. Even though my house was 1902, I didn't like my brick because it looked too new. With brick like yours, I would not put up shutters. Think of it as a look, and when you tire of it put them backup!

2. Yes, it is hard to find paint schemes for brick. Personally I think it's because it only looks good w b/w, anyway. That said, one of the programs lets you photoshop a photo of your house, so you don't need to pretend it is HC 50

3 You can hire a consultant who specializes in exterior paint colors; we did once and it was like $250? Of course we didnt like what she did but that's another story

4. I recall that some historical societies had recommended color schemes you might find of use; google this

We painted our old house in 2010 I think ... the painter only used Sherwin Williams. I remember the black was inkwell, the other colors Id have to look up.

Here it is from far away:

And close up

I can try to look up the colors if you want, but I think you get the gist; a creamy color and a mustard color, pretty much!