Should you paint your beautiful brick house? : Annie Elliott Design

The short and unsatisfying answer, Gentle Readers, is maybe. It’s entirely up to you (and your trusty designer). In sorting through my thoughts about this subject, I couldn’t come up with a hard and fast set of rules — much to my chagrin.

Sometimes, a red brick house is drop-dead gorgeous. Sometimes, a brick house painted white is stunning. Sometimes — just sometimes, mind you — a lime wash is just what a brick house needs.

Limewashed colonial house — Limewashed house from Magzhouse. This is a controversial finish — people love it or hate it

Let’s see where these pictures take us, shall we? I don’t think any of these red brick houses would look better painted, no matter what color you choose. Each one has character.

Georgian style brick house — It’s hard for me to imagine recommending that a client paint a Georgian house. From Houzz

But here’s a compelling argument for painting an uninteresting brick house, from Paper Moon Painting:

Brick house before being painted — Admittedly, the dung-colored trim doesn’t help

White painted brick house — WOW, right? Between that and the landscaping, these homeowners just added serious value to their house

Is it a freestanding house thing? Because I LOVE a painted row house. (Obviously, right, because I live in one?)

White painted brick row house townhouse — Next to the natural brick houses (which are beautiful, too), the white is pretty fresh. I bet this is on Capitol Hill. From HGTV.com

Bright blue painted brick row house townhouse — Blue townhouse in Georgetown. By Eric Plut on Pinterest

Light blue/green painted brick row house townhouse — From a blog called Katie Considers

Colorful brick row houses in Philadelphia — Panama Street in Philadelphia, from the blog Insider

If you described this next house to me – “It’s pistachio green with a duck-egg blue door” – I wouldn’t have believed it could look so appealing. It’s offbeat and utterly charming.

Light green painted brick row house townhouse — From a lovely blog called The Front Door Project

Light green painted brick row house townhouse with pink door — Tilly welcomes you to our house!

You know how I feel about gray, so while I’m not RECOMMENDING that you paint your house gray, I do think these two row houses look quite pretty:

Gray painted brick row house townhouse — From the blog Row House Refuge

It’s not just the row houses that can look great painted. Some freestanding brick houses look amazing. This Georgetown house is freestanding, for example:

Blue painted brick historic house — From a lovely blog called The Front Door Project

As is this one:

Yellow painted brick historic house — By Shutterfool on Flickr

And this modern one:

Modern contemporary white painted brick house — From Classic, Actually on Tumblr

See why I couldn’t come up with guidelines for you? To paint or not to paint your beautiful brick house…that has to be addressed on a case-by-case basis, I’m afraid.

Just know that if your house is natural brick and you DO decide to paint it, there’s no turning back. But I’m a risk-taker, so naturally, I’ll encourage you to go for it. Chances are, it will look amazing.

Annie Elliott Design is based in Washington, DC, with additonal offices in St. Michaels, Maryland and Middlebury, Vermont. Annie’s design work and insights have appeared in numerous local and national publications, including HGTV Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Washingtonian Magazine.