Don't paint brick.

Please do yourself a favor and don't paint it. Why turn a long-lived surface into a maintenance nightmare?

I see a lot of painting exterior brick on HGTV and it really updates the look of the homes. Here are a couple pictures. One of the whole house right after we put the new gray siding on and the other was just the other day...new front porch decorated for Fall. Landscaping is work in progress...

Yes, I've watched Chip and Joanna Gaines paint brick countless times and I always wonder why they do it. I think it's because their show's "gimick", in particular, focuses on a "changed" exterior when they do the reveal. I do think it's a matter of personal taste as to whether or not painting brick is an "updated" look, but I agree with the others that painting brick is a mistake. If I were house shopping, I wouldn't buy a painted brick home and would look at it as a maintenance headache, as rwiegand points out. IMO, new landscaping including some trees (as you've mentioned above is in progress), new sidewalks, and maybe a new driveway would greatly improve the look of your house without ruining the brick.

I'm for pink!

Thank you, I appreciate your opinion and maybe youre right...updating by replacing the driveway and sidewalk will make a huge difference. You all gave me a lot to think about and maybe it is smarter to put our money towards those updates instead of painting the brick. Ok, what about adding shutters? I just feel like the exterior is "blah". We are also looking at new front door. Thank you for taking the time to offer your opinion.

Here's some useful information about exterior shutters, http://www.oldhouseguy.com/shutters/

Shutters - bolt on garbage.

Stop trying to fix a problem that does not exist and focus on the problems that DO exist.

No one ever goes back in 5 years to follow up with the homeowners dealing with a nasty peeling and spalling mess induced by slapping on paint on something that should not be painted.

HGTV is complete fiction. It's all lies for entertainment. It's not educational TV on PBS. It bears no more resemblance to what goes on in a renovation that walking the neighborhood path around the pond does to an Iron Man Triathlon.

I kinda like shutters on some exteriors, though that it not a popular opinion on this forum. But I don't think shutters would add anything to your house and they will look odd (too busy) since you have two different surfaces on either side of most of your windows.

I can see how the widened driveway could be useful for parking an extra car, but it really looks out of place jutting over to the left like that beneath the window. Just removing that would be a big improvement. I really don't think your house needs much work at all; just some greenery, trees, and interesting hardscape.

I actually don't mind painting brick, though I strongly prefer staining brick but so long as you use the correct product I actually like the look of painted brick. You must use a vapor permeable paint, and painting increases the maintenance required for brick considerably, but if the look is completely outdated or inappropriate to begin with then sometimes painting brick can really update the look. Having said that I live in the land of red brick houses and they bricked everything even craftsman influenced houses where brick is not appropriate at all.

However, I think painting the brick is the least of your problems. If I owned your home I would start by planting a nice tall cypress (or anything tall and thin) along the left edge that distract from that wide brick border on that side. I would then cover up the lower brick border with some sort of hedge or bushes that break up that line between the brick and the siding. If I had the budget for it, I would remove the vinyl siding and either go with a darker grey (or a blending color) wide board hardie type siding or staining the brick into something softer.

Before you take my advice, this isn't something that I excel at personally so other posters might be giving you better advice than I am.

The other and probably best option is to remove some of the brick, add brick in other areas and then paint or stain the whole thing to update the look, however, that is a significant expense to accomplish what a great landscaper can do for 1/5th of the price.

I agree with you that your house looks blah. It will look blah until you landscape it.

Painting brick is a good way to deal with discoloration from a major house fire. I'll give it that.

Your real problem is that you chose a bad color for the siding. It doesn't go. Don't compound it by painting the brick.

I don't think the grey siding looks that bad with your brick. It's not common around here, but it's not bad at all. Don't paint the brick.

What you really need is landscaping and hardscaping. Post your picture in the Landscape Design forum and you'll get some awesome professional opinions (and pictures!) of how your home would look with new landscaping. And I agree - the first things to go should be the extra parking space attached to the left side of the driveway (ugh!) and the old sidewalk. And the unlevel row of bricks that appear to edge a flowerbed.

Landscape Design forum