If you're building a 5-year plan house, then build what the neighborhood is suited for. If all your neighbors are brick, don't build vinyl and think it will be an easy sell in a few years. From what I've seen brick homes seem to retain value compared to alternatively sided homes (to an extent). I can say this because I happen to own a rental home which was built in 1959 - all brick. The houses in the area which aren't brick are usually priced $20k less when they go on the market. On our new build we went 3 sides brick knowing full well the vinyl would need to be power-washed. I truly regret that decision. It saved me $4k but I would gladly pay that now for a do-over!

Thanks ckinkopf for your ideas and thoughts. Glad you think it will look okay when we are all done. I think you are the first poster to mention we should have done darker windows, although I have thought that. Ignoring the windows for now is likely what we will do as I am out of ideas for repeating the white. Most of our windows are fiberglass which can certainly be painted. The basement windows and two others on the house are vinyl which I would be more reluctant to paint. The vinyl windows were bought 5 years ago and won't last as long as the fiberglass, so maybe in 10-15 years if they need replacing, we will swap them out for fiberglass and then paint them all a grey to match the window trim. At that point we would need to repaint the siding anyway so we would need scaffolding. Yikes, I hope we finish this reno by the time we need to repaint it all!!!

Every room in my entire home is painted in BM Navaho White. I have very large windows and window walls in pretty much every room, and facing every direction. The rooms all read "creamy white" and not yellow but, that said, there is enough yellow in this paint so that the walls don't clash with any of the Mexican Talavera tile we've used in here. The white in Talavera tiles does have a slight yellow cast to it, and it took me a while to find the right White to look white but also work with my tile.

My condolences - link to this should be posted to every "paint my fireplace white" thread. I'm hoping that fad is quickly on its way out. We don't see too many threads anymore about slapping java gel stain over kitchen cabinets and making a mess of them like we were inundated with 10-15 yrs ago.... so perhaps "this too will pass." Obviously you won't be able to remove all the paint that is deep in the pores of the brick, but you might be able to get enough of the surface film off so that you could apply a different coating over and recreate a brick look. I would suggest looking into mineral paints, aka potassium silicate paints which use mineral pigments (not chemical colorants) which give a more natural mineral look and provide a dead flat matte surface which would look more like real brick. There are related products which can adjust the texture of the surface. Its called paint but its more of a chemical bond to the mineral in the masonry and not a plastic film which sits on the surface, so its going to look more like real brick. Because of my own project house (100 yr old concrete masonry exterior) Ive been communicating with 2 US based companies that carry these products and the customer service has been extraordinary. Im sure either or both would be interested in your project: https://www.beeckmineralpaints.com/ https://limeworks.us