Don’t paint brick and give yourself maintenance headaches. Just use white brick.

Hey! We built a brick home with the intent to paint it. For the look we wanted, the architect said regular brick would be fine. We found a brick that was overstocked or closed out or somesuch and got it! It actually wasn’t a bad looking brick, but we used the cheap gray mortar which was not pretty. We did use the same brick on our front stoop and back porch with taupe mortar & it looked very nice. The amount of & we saved didn’t cover the cost of masonry painting, but it helped! :)

Here is a pic...you can see the color of the brick on the steps, and of course how it looks painted. Zoom in

Oh, yes, everyone wil tell you not to paint, lol! We’ve been in our house seven years this month, that pic was taken in May after a re-landscaping project. Brick is still perfect. :)

Its beautiful!

My builder built his own house and used regular brick which he immediately painted. This is a link to some highly recommended paint and lime wash that has a gallery so you can see what the different textures look like. https://romabio.com/masonry/

I live on a street where all but two of the brick houses (they are all brick) are painted. These houses were built either right before WWII or right after. I've seen people change the color, but never repaint due to peeling paint. My house has been painted once in 34 years, not our of need but out of an extreme dislike the for color it was painted when we bought the house. We re-painted it 15 years ago - no peeling anywhere.

I have no idea where the idea of constant maintenance comes from, unless brick made today is in some way different from old brick which holds paint quite well.

ditto what Sophie said. WITH would you want to paint brick?????????????? Brick is maint. free!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know someone who has painted brick chimneys. She is painting every five years and after there years it is peeling. It depends on the brick and the paint. Aside form peeling and breaking the surface off the brick, paint looks dirty after awhile.

There are many reasons to want to paint brick. In our case, we wanted the solidity (is that a word? lol) of a brick house but wanted a white house. We did NOT want siding or stucco. We did our research on CURRENT masonry paints and painting methods. We talked to folks who actually lived in painted brick houses. It is not uncommon here in the SE, at all. Some of the loveliest homes in the most gracious, tree-lined, old neighborhoods of Atlanta and Charlotte are painted brick. THAT was the vibe we were going for. We are in the land of red clay...brick is very common here. I understand other areas of the country don’t use brick as extensively and have much less experience with painted brick. If this is a look you love...just do the research and decide based on the materials and experience of professionals in your area.

Oh, and I DID look for white brick initially. True white brick is NOT the look I wanted at all...it was extraordinarily too commercial-looking for my taste.

10 Downing Street is painted brick. Nuff said.

:)

Old lead based oil paint isn’t available any longer.

Okay I am confused white brick is too commercial looking but painted brick is great ???? IMO painted brick just lowers the value of a brick house why not choose some other kind of siding. I have no idea what the style of the house is but I never like painted brick and all the upkeep involved not to mention when it gets dirty power washing is not advised.

So, because you won’t be around to see the deterioration of an improperly waterproofed shower, or the water leaks b cause of the improper header flashing, you’re gonna not do that correctly either?

I would think you would be able to find a white brick and matching mortar that worked. Or if you want the house to be painted white, use white brick and mortar and paint it white.

Or why not do limewash or heavily sacked brick?

But why are you building a house you plan to be in for 2 years, that seems like a painful process for such a short period of time. It's none of my business but you did bring it up.

Again, we’ve been in our home SEVEN years now, and have not had to perform one bit of maintenance to our brick paint. Of course, if you can find a brick that is already the color you want without painting, I would do that. The masonry paint and labor was not an insignificant cost. But...I wanted the look of paint covering the mortar...it looked older or more historic or just simply more “right” to me. I would talk to people who actually live in painted brick homes to get first-hand knowledge of the situation. That’s what I did. Peoole who are chiming in that they don‘t like painted brick or that the upkeep is a nightmare (when they don’t live in a painted brick house!) are not helping you get your question answered.

I have a 'mystery brick' that alternates with off-white stucco on our house. It's red brick, made with a rough, off-white coating. (You have to be quite close to see the underlying red.) It's unchanged after 18 years of Chicago weather.

Does anyone know what such a coating is made of and what this type of brick is called?

I love the attitude , who cares about the next guy who buys the house .

You have to wonder if those with the attitude -- who cares about the next guy -- are also littering the roadsides ... just not in front of their home.

There are different sizes of white brick and different styles -- smooth or various kinds of textures. Take the time to find one you actually like.

Not a fan of painted brick at all. The original painted brick, if totally clean when paint is first applied, might last quite a while. Then someone finds a few stains and/or defects or just dislikes the color and repaints it, likely without even pressure washing it first ... from then on, expect the time between it needing painting to decrease with each painting.

And as for upkeep, we only plan to be in the house for 2-5 years so I wouldn't think we need to worry about it.

Just pointing out that this is what some of the negative response is about. Not that you are painting the brick, but that you are making it sound like don't care how long it lasts because you are selling. Like it could peel off as soon as you sell it. Particularly if you are building this house to sell (an assumption since you already have an exit strategy), I would think you would want to sell a good product. Maybe what you said is not really what you meant.

Painted brick houses are very common here, too, and maybe that means people know what they are doing since I don't see peeling like shown above. However, most houses here only have one or two sides to worry about unless they live on the end of a row.

Most brick houses in my town are painted. Why? Because the local brick is an ugly color. Brick is typically made locally due to shipping costs, thus the color will vary with the part of the country. In St Louis, there is some really pretty brick, but it’s seen on 80-90 yr old houses. Newer ones are not as pretty. Many St Louis houses have German smear whitewash- such a classic look on an older classic house.

DD’s house is also painted brick. They’ve owned the house now for nearly 20 years. It was painted when they bought it. They did have some peeling on their chimney - painter said it was due to moisture. He repainted it about 10 years ago - just the small area that had peeled. No further problems. Her house was built in the 1960’s.

Ashley....where are you in the country?

So in full disclosure we are painting brick on our new house.

We lived previously in a neighborhood that started in 2004 and finished in 2008 (mostly). We actually built in 2009 as one of the last houses.

There was one painted brick house originally in the hood. It has never been painted and it looks very reasonable - some patina but I wouldn't be painting it yet if I owned it.

Flash forward to 2018 and there are now several painted houses in the hood. We did ours in a whitish brick - certainly nothing commercial looking. I can tell you the colored mortar to get the look we really wanted was $6000 at the time and we opted against it. We opted for a tan mortar at just $1000. So going white without paint is not necessarily cheap either. The brick wasn't cheap either.

Now the really interesting part is that we sold this house in October of last year and the new buyers have painted it white. It looks good. Crazy in my opinion to paint powder coated white brick but they did it. Not sure how long that paint will last.

We are in south Louisiana.

Then you might want to choose a house color where mold and mildew is not so obvious. Or a material that doesn’t suffer from being power washed so frequently to clean that mold and mildew.

Or buy scaffolding and learn to enjoy the annual scrubbing down of the exterior, and the application of the limewash every couple of years over the permanent mldew stains that still occur.

Because the vast majority of “painted” brick that holds up is actually a lime wash, not a paint that causes breathing issues and spalling brick. That black mold and mildew staining was a primary motivation for a lime wash. It could be frequently renewed, because labor was cheap. Labor is no longer cheap.

We lived in a white painted brick home for 10 years. The home had been painted 7 years before that. The paint job was still perfect when we moved out. IMO, painted brick is classic and beautiful- go for it and don't look back 1

Notice that all of the painted brick that is peeling is on a chimney. It's because smoke chemicals will leech into the brick and mortar. This will cause deterioration of the brick, mortar, stucco or paint. It has nothing to do with general maintenance or the paint. These chimneys need installation of a stainless sleeve to protect the material. I've written the check for it, so I know how this works.

The best exterior on one of the nine homes I have owned was the painted brick. It lasted the 15 years we owned it and is still on that house. We did take the trouble to wash it each year. It's a great option. It wears well.

We wanted brick that comes across as a solid color but residential brick is usually variegated and has a course texture. The brick supplier offered us one choice - painters brick. It is a red brick meant to be painted. It has some texture but it isn't the course texture created with wire like most residential brick. It has "dings" so it looks a little roughed up.

In our search we learned that residential brick is actually coated on just the sides. Aggressive power washing can remove the coating. Architectural brick is the same color all the way through and is more costly. The painters brick we chose is the same color all the way through like architectural brick.

Ask your supplier for painters brick. Let us know how it goes!