Pictures please

Go online and look at pictures of painted brick. White is classic, and how wonderful the insurance company will for the bill. The painters will have to prep the brick, which means a thorough examination and repairs, then power wash, then paint. Any crumbles or mortar issues will be fixed for you.

@cat_ky

I’ve honestly changed my whole thought on this. I don’t think whitish/off white with black trim will look good. Despite my husbands best efforts to convince me. I feel like it needs to stay true to the craftsman style and have a lighter trim. Thoughts?

Where is the damage? Pictures of the damage?

A neighbor painted bricks white and trim gray, and I think it looks great!

@ci_lantro No this is an old picture and picture from the original listing of the home

@ci_lantro heres a few pics of the damage. Mainly to roof, structure, and north side of home.

@ci_lantro heres a few pics of the damage. Mainly to roof, structure, and north side of home.

By the way, the paint colors above are Elemental and Aegean Olive in first photo.
Second photo is Aegean olive, mountain road and Manchester tan. I believe they are renderings. The Manchester tan seems too pale to me. Just some ideas. You would want to test paint colors on large boards and of course make sure they work with the roof color. Are you getting an entire new roof also?

@susie . Yes we will be getting a new roof as well. I’ve been looking at romabio. Are you happy with how it turned out? I’m considering painting the main exterior Gray Owl, with Swiss Coffee trim and a darker brown for the areas that are currently the purple color.

From the pictures, it looks like you could salvage enough bricks to repair the siding up to the top of the windows and then shingle the gable end with the same material or close to same as the dormer on the front of the house.

Which would leave the chimney rebuild problem to solve. Maybe a close match for the chimney would work?

Or, give these folks a call about getting matched brick:

https://cloudceramics.com/brick-matching/

RomaBio does color match - they also have a fandeck. I have the more popular colors in the DNA Table. Nube Gray is pretty - not as "gray" as it might look online.

Can order a quart from The Home Depot to sample.

All masonry paint will work on brick. There are many brands to choose from. Romabio spends a lot of money on slick marketing.

Completely agree with @ci_lantro about the gable idea. Many houses in my 1970's era neighborhood have the chimney painted above the roof line. Never thought about why but likely has to do with damage repair from big tree falling on the chimney in storms we often have. Such a shame to paint that lovely brick on a classic house.

I had a similar thing happen to my house during an ice storm that brought down an enormous pine tree. My damage wasn't as bad as yours but I did get the roof rafters rebuilt, a new roof, skylights and some really ugly faux beams that I absolutely hated, removed from the vaulted ceiling in my kitchen. As the roofer said at the time, "While we got the roof off let's just lift 'em out!" He also gave me a great deal on skylight installation since he had to rebuild everything anyway.

Hope this disaster turns out to be a wonderful opportunity for you to make improvements too.

Yes, we were happy with Romabio. Its a nice matte finish. We did it on a previous home that we now rent out. It’s held up well.

So what decided to go with SW Alpaca, trim in Valspar Swiss Coffee and accent color in SW Urbane Bronze

Pretty.

After seeing your pictures, I sure wouldnt be paint that brick. Looks like damage isnt on the street side, but, is in a place, that will be a lot less noticable. Get the new roof, and have them try for the best brick match you can get, for the small amount of brick work, that needs to be done. It wont be noticable in that location, unless you are there looking for it, and the rest of your beautiful house will still look nice. No white paint with black trim on that house. It would ruin the look of the house.

I urge you to contact some professional masonry restorationists before proceeding. Get some more info before doing anything irreversible. Where are you located - what you might be up against (as I was) is that your local tradespeople are kinda set in their ways and you might have to look beyond your immediate area for some different points of view.

When restoring my own 100 yr old masonry I found the advice I received from https://www.limeworks.us to be invaluable and saved me from making big mistakes. They were so generous with their time - I sent them pics and remember spending quite a bit of time on the phone with my questions. Maybe you dont want to DIY the work yourself, but youd still want to know whats possible and what to look for in hiring a craftsperson to do the job.

Off the top of my head - I know its indeed possible to match brick by expert use of color to match new brick with old (have seen it done around here). Using a mineral paint (aka potassium silicate) replicating authentic brick color is another possibilty - this is not modern plastic acrylic paint coating, but absorbs into and forms a chemical bond with old masonry to color and strengthen it - very commonly used in europe but for some reason hasnt caught on here very much.

Anyway Id be so interested to hear what you find out!

WAIT A MINUTE - so the damage just located in that small triangle under the gable? If so, just match the brick as close as possible (as Cat suggested) AND, consider artisan tweaking color with mineral colorants if necessary. Im sorry but the notion of painting the entire house (even if using a non-damaging mineral based paint) just because of that one small spot is like using a blow torch to light a few birthday candles. Instead focus on jazzing up house with new roof and trim color. "Classic" is what's authentic and in sync with original intentions. "Classic" is not imposing the latest fad du jour (ie stark black and white) on a house.

Re "All masonry paint will work on brick". It depends what you mean by "works on." The masonry paint my neighbors used 15 yrs ago "worked on" their brick just fine - for, oh, maybe 10 years before paint began to peel off in sheets and the horrible spalling resulted in actual chunks of brick cracking/falling off. Their "solution" was to slop over it with some kind of cement parging and repaint with same old stuff. Well see how long that lasts! OK, I think Ive said what I have to say - carry on!