How We Painted Our Brick House

I knew painting our brick would make a huge difference but I was not prepared for how amazing this painted white brick makeover would look. Not only did it immediately brighten up the curb appeal, but it made the whole house look decades newer. We even had a neighbor stop us to say he appreciates the late-night-coming-home-in-the-dark landmark in an otherwise not that exciting street, and our realtor happened to drive by and sent a text to say how great the house looks since we painted our brick house.

Painting brick is controversial, it seems

Now, after sharing a few updates on Instagram of how we painted our brick house, I know there are painted brick haters out there. People worry about moisture being trapped under the surface and doing longterm damage, about the maintenance it will require, and about ruining the look of the brick.

For me, I did a ton of research and took every prep step possible (more on that in a minute). We have a brand new roof that’s less than a year old which will minimize the chance of moisture coming down onto the walls, and I am willing to do the maintenance work to keep the paint job looking fresh, plus I just love the look of a white brick house.

Also, with the popularity of painted brick, I did lots of research into the risks and issues and could only find blogs and contractor articles warning about painting brick without finding any actual examples or anecdotes or photos of what actually happens to the brick to make painting it so bad. So, with all that information laid out there, we trucked on to our vision of an English cottage style white brick house.

Prep work

We first cleaned up the overgrown bushes touching the house and took down the old, warped shutters. We spent hours pressure washing the brick (a good four days before starting priming so it was 100% dried out by the time we started), and even that made a big difference.

Then, I used exterior caulk to go around the whole perimeter of the house and fill in any gaps, cracks, or old screw holes to make sure it was looking as polished as possible (for a 70-year-old house).

One note is that brick houses have something called “weep holes” near the bottom which are usually bricks that are spaced noticeably far apart and look like they have a gap, but don’t fill those in! They’re there to help stop moisture building up behind the brick with the idea that if moisture does seep in behind the brick, it can run down and out of those spaces.

Anyway, we next taped off the windows, around our water heater and around any other random cords and cables on the outside of the house, and then were good to start painting.

Priming and painting

We used the Graco Magnum x5 to do one coat of masonry primer around the whole house, which only took a couple of hours once everything was prepped.

The primer looked pretty transparent and splotchy which honestly had me a bit nervous, but when we did the first coat of paint the next day all that fear was gone because it immediately looked so good. We ended up doing two coats of paint (Timeless by Clare, which is an exterior latex paint that’s specifically supposed to be brick-friendly) over two days in total and learned a lot about painting a house.

Here are a few paint sprayer tips we learned while we painted our brick house:

• Keep the spray trigger a consistent distance from the wall as you move the sprayer, ideally at about 12 inches out. This means you probably need to move your whole body with the spray gun rather than fanning it out at the edges which risks paint building up in those edge spots.
• Overlap each row by about 50%, and try not to go back over the same row multiple times or even if it doesn’t look like it, paint will pool and cause drips (says the girl who had to use a paint brush and fix drips on an entire wall). Test the spray pressure on a piece of cardboard or plywood before starting, every time.
• Watch as many YouTube videos as humanly possible on your model of sprayer and learn how to prep, clean up and run out clogs before getting started.
• Invest in a painters shield for around the bottom of the surface to protect your landscaping/patio and any other obstacles you need to stay paint-free.

Next steps

Though the painting made a huge difference, we’ve still got some steps to do before our little exterior makeover is fully finished. We need to paint around the windows and trim, have the front door replaced (it’s not only old and grimy but has some wood rot around the trim, too), and we’ve since made some DIY window shutters.

We’ll also eventually add lower boxes and more landscaping but that’ll probably need to wait for the spring. Let us know what you think about how we painted our brick house and the progress so far! You can continue to follow along with our DIY shenanigans by subscribing to our newsletter and following us on Instagram.

Happy DIYing!
Emma