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!

Definitely use an oil based product. All the water based "latex" stains form a surface film. Any surface film can peel, especially after several coats over the years. Oil products penetrate into the wood, leaving no surface film. They will not peel, because there is nothing there to peel! Oil products are normally ONE coat products. you want the wood to absorb all the stain it wants, but no more. Oil stains are not a case of "if one coat is good, two must be better! " Latex "stains" usually require two initial coats. Also, over the years, with multiple refresher coats, the latex stains start to look somewhat opaque. All oil products will have somewhat of an amber tone which is inherent to the nature of the oils. Transparent, clear oil will make the cedar darken somewhat, similar to right after a rain when it gets wet. Semi-transparent stains will give better protection because the pigment tends to block the UV rays of the sun. I have no problems with the stains mentioned: Sikkens, PPG and Cabot's. I have also recently used Behr Cedar Oil Stain on my 150 feet of new cedar fencing, but in full disclosure, I sell Behr products at Home Depot.

Go find out what's the best paint/stain for redwood. I do know that redwood bleeds through regular opaque stains. Cabot opaque stains can be tinted to Ben Moore colors but if you want to leave it natural, you'll probably want a clear coat of some kind. Do not trust any information you get about these stains from Lowe's or Home Depot, even though they sell it, the person helping you isn't always familiar with the product. Find yourself a stand- alone paint store that sells decking and siding stain. PS. Thompson's Weather Shield isn't the right product for this.

likewhatyoudo - Thank you so much for those gorgeous recommendations. I do feel like I need something a bit more dramatic as everyone in our neighborhood is pretty much light gray. Just curious what is the equal of BM Embers to Sherwin Williams? And regarding your suggestions of beefing up columns, we actually replaced our columns last week which I've attached today's picture here so you can see it a bit more. I would LOVE to replace our door in addition but I don't have the $$ to do that t this time. Not sure if you saw another post I actually added this morning (titled: Help! Need to decide exterior paint asap! Looking for mok ups to help) explaining I just lost my job due to COVID so I'm scraping by gettting the little work done that is currently taking place (replacing awful wood rot and the load bearing columns) , and now getting to paint. So no wiggle room for anything extra though we are trying to get our front lawn to look good this summer (fingers crossed). I really do appreciate all suggestions though.....time is ticking and my fiance is going to ring my neck!