Will the trim, gutters and garage be white as well?

To appreciate the white, you need either landscaping or a contrasting paint accent.

Great comments. We've painted the fascia in Iron Mountain.

We're getting new gutters that are almost the same color. If they don't look right, we'll paint them in Iron Mountain. We'll add rain chains.

The garage will have a pergola and we'll paint it, and the garage door, in Iron Mountain.

the white and black trim are great, but adding some horizontal wood siding really makes it look modern.

**horrible trying to get photos to load!*

btw, look at Romabio masonry paint. it's a solid coat. but still lets your brick breathe and has low maintenance.

if you like Chantilly, do that one. it's a cooler white with slight minty undertones to it. if you like SW, then try their pure white, or just use the white right out of the can. don't tint it.

Have you looked at BM simply white? It’s whiter than white dove but is still slightly warm. It’s one of my favorite whites.

BeverlyFLADeziner, You hit the white I want on the head with picture 2 on your first post, picture 3 looks pretty good too. Picture 1 on your second post looks great, but may be a bit too warm. Do you know what those colors are?

I agree with you on the landscaping. I've got a landscape designer friend who has designed a plan. We just have to execute it. That will be AFTER we paint the brick.

Patricia, the windows were already replaced when we bought it. I don't like the grids either, but gonna leave them for now. We have actually painted vinyl windows before with great success, but they were full view. These have the grids sandwiched between the two panes.

The picture I posted was before we upgraded the front door to a MCM version. Home Depot is finally selling nice looking front doors. I had to order it because the only thing they have in stock are colonial and those horribly overused Victorian oval front doors.

Beth, those pictures look great, they're good inspiration. I am liking the truer whites now, but don't want this north facing house to look cold.

I have a very talented designer friend. When he has time for me, he's encouraging me to paint the brick a slightly off white but paint the board below the soffit and the trim around the window in a white that matches the windows. The Chantilly Lace is the best match for those areas.

Stephanie, Yes, I've been thinking about BM Simply White quite a bit.

You know, we can't trust our cell phones or our monitors to display correctly, they all tweak the actual colors, but Simply White seems to be like White Dove. That is, sometimes it looks like a great white while other times that yellow shows itself.

The whole inside of this house is painted White Dove, most of the walls, ceiling, and trim. You say Simply White has less yellow than White Dove, that's good.

Even with SW Snowbound there's a touch of yellow although some still label it a cooler color.

I use BM on all my interiors but prefer to use Sherwin Williams on the exterior because I've used it for thirty years with great success in a tough Florida environment. But you got me thinking about Simply White again. It's kind of foolproof.

Who knew picking out whites would be this hard?

I would go with no sheen , just flat for exterior,

Great advice. I always try to use as little sheen as possible. Someone "upgraded" the original plain slab interior doors in this house to those six-panel colonial doors complete with unnecessary ornamentation and fake woodgrain - arghh!. I toned those puppies down with just an eggshell/pearl sheen white dove instead of semi-gloss. The woodgrain looks less fake.

On the last brick cottage renovation we did, we used low luster, which is one up from flat in the BM exterior line. It looked pretty good, certainly not shiny. I was thinking satin on this one, but if I do BM Simply White, I'll do the low luster again. Thanks. I was kind of on the fence on that one thinking a modern home might need a touch more sheen.

Hello! You could try BM Super White. It’s a pretty bright white but depends on lighting, no Yellow.

Saw that on the walls of an IKEA display and it was clean and pure. Its probably BMs equivalent to SW Chantilly Lace.

Whatever white you choose for the brick, paint the downspouts the same. Do not paint the downspouts the iron mountain to match your gutters and fascia.

It would be helpful if you gave us a current photo of the house.

Agree one hundred percent, there is nothing to feature about a normal downspout. They should fade away into the brick.

We're doing four downspouts actually. The two outer ones are just normal aluminum, will be whatever white color and will go down to the ground.

The two inner ones on either side of the front porch will be black rain chains and will be anchored into large pots.

following

Facing North, a white, mid-century modern:

B.M Mirage White

The last thing I consider especially for exteriors is which direction the front door/windows faces. Because the light is constantly changing throughout the day and the year - it's a point of criteria that literally changes by the second.

I understand your attraction to the cleaner whites in terms of chips and samples.

What you need to try to anticipate is what happens to white on a bigger scale and in sunlight. Just because the house faces north, doesn't mean it's on the dark side of the moon.

Sunlight - from all directions - strips chromaticity or colorfulness. So that "clean" white that looks good on samples and chips ends up looking rather arctic.

Simply White is a really good suggestion because it has a little bit of chroma/colorfulness and there's a chance it will "wash out" and look just right once installed.

As a general rule, you can always go a little darker and a little more colorful on exteriors than you think you can because, again, sunlight will knock back the intensity.

I think you hit on something Lori. There's a huge house down the street with white painted brick paired with steep black rooflines that's too cool to me for this house. It's facing south and gets a lot of sun.

When I look closely at the color on an individual brick, it looks fine, but there is soooo much brick that overall it looks starker than I want.

By the way, there is a new modern farmhouse nearby in SW alabaster that looks very nice but it's not quite white enough for a modern home to me.

Still clinging to BM Simply White with SW Snowbound in the back of my mind. I test next week.

Wow JudyG, BM Gray Mirage is a "can't lose" color by Candice Olson. I have a ton of respect for her so i'm sure it would look great. I also see its described as a misty gray green. Right or wrong, I just see white for the exterior of this house, but gonna keep that color in the back of my mind for furniture etc. Thanks!

When I look closely at the color on an individual brick, it looks fine, but there is soooo much brick that overall it looks starker than I want.

That is exactly what I'm talking about.