How to Choose Exterior Paint Colors for a Brick Home

It’s time to paint the trim and siding on our brick home! When I began thinking about updating our back patio, I knew I wanted to paint the ceiling white to brighten up the space. Of course, that led me down the rabbit hole to painting the trim and siding on our entire home. So, here we are talking about exterior paint colors to update our brick home for week 2 of the One Room Challenge. (Read my week 1 post here for an intro to our backyard patio and 5 Ways to Cozy Up Your Patio for Fall).

After spending the past month looking for inspiration and colors, I’ve discovered a lot as far as how to choose the right colors to match our brick. However, I found it difficult to find much info on how to update your brick home and choose colors if you want to keep your brick natural rather than painting, lime washing, mortar washing, etc. Read on for a compilation of all the tips and tricks I’ve learned about choosing exterior paint colors to pair with a natural brick home.

Inspo Pic Source

Why We Chose to Keep Our Natural Brick

Before choosing paint colors for our brick home, we needed to decide if we would keep our brick natural or cover it. We chose not to cover it because, while we like the look of a bright white house, we also love the beauty of natural brick. Any paint or wash you do is permanent. So, given that we like the coloring of our brown brick, I didn’t want to cover up it’s beauty forever. We can always cover it later on if we want, but we couldn’t go back once it’s done.

Now that we know why we wanted to keep our brick natural rather than following the trend of painting/lime washing, let’s move on to how to choose trim paint colors for a natural brick home.

How to Choose Trim Paint Colors for a Brick Home

Choosing colors for a natural brick home adds a different component than a fully painted house. The paint colors should coordinate with the coloring in the brick to create a cohesive exterior.

What to Consider When Choosing Exterior Paint Colors for Your Brick Home

There are multiple factors you should take into consideration when picking exterior paint colors for a brick home, including:

• Brick Color
• Mortar Color
• Roof Color
• Size and Color of Window Trim
• Soffit and Fascia Color
• Placement and Color of Gutters
• Placement and Color of Siding
• Architectural Style and Features

Pick a Color From Your Brick

An easy way to pick a trim color (rather than guessing) is to match a color that is naturally occurring in your brick, mortar, or roof (if it’s newer and will not be changed anytime soon). If you have a sample of your brick, you can bring it into the store to color match. But, since I don’t, I’ll simply grab a bunch of sample swatches. Once I’ve narrowed it down, I’ll paint a few test patches on our house to ensure the color looks correct.

Match The Undertones

The trick to find the right color for your home is to match the brick’s undertones. Brick colors can vary widely, so it’s important to match the undertones in your brick, whether brown, grey, pink, yellow, purple, etc. Our brick is a warm brown with some light and dark specks and a light grey mortar. Our roof happens to be a warm brown as well. So, the paint colors I choose should have a warm/brown undertone. The same tone-matching holds true for any color you might pick for your brick home. For example, if you want green or blue accents, you’ll want the green or blue you pick to match with the undertones and blend with overall color scheme of your home.

My Process

1. Look for Inspo!

Okay, this might seem obvious, but before you pick a color, you should look for inspiration to find out what you like. As with any project I do, I like to save everything to a Pinterest board to keep everything in one easy place so I can compare it side by side. I also began paying close attention to the trim colors on brick homes while going on walks or driving around and took a mental note of what I liked or didn’t like. Click here to view my Pinterest board that’s full of modern brick home exteriors.

Inspo Pic Source

2. Spend Hours Debating with Yourself

I had to include this as a step because it’s the dead honest truth. Unless you’re a highly decisive person (which, I am not), you will go back and forth between all the color schemes you think you might want. Exterior colors are much harder to choose than interior colors because you can’t just throw a few samples up on the house and know what it will look like over your entire home.

Which, brings me to Step #3…

3. Create a Digital Mockup to Compare Paint Colors

I am a very visual person, so this made it so much easier for me to know what I wanted. My process for this was to overlay different colors on our home to see what they would look like. I used Adobe Illustrator to create a highly realistic mockup, but there’s no reason it has to be overly complex. I actually first did it using the paint feature on my phone, but decided I needed a better visual. There are plenty of options, including free online paint visualizers as well as professional services to create an exterior design mockup for you. The whole point of this step for me was to see our full home in the colors I was considering so I could compare them side-by-side.

Inspo Pic Source

4. Find Colors that Complement Your Brick

As I mentioned above, once you know the general paint colors you want for your home, you’ll want to pick out colors that match the natural undertones in your brick. For our home, I plan to pick a white that comes from a color naturally occurring in our brick paired with a neutral black for certain accents. We haven’t finalized the siding color, but it’ll most likely be a brown that blends with the brick and/or roof.

5. Paint Test Swatches on Your Home

Before committing to your chosen colors, I highly recommend painting swatches on your home, such as part of the window or door trim, to confirm the colors look right with your brick. This can also help you decide between two colors if you’re not sure which one to choose.

6. Ready for Paint!

That’s it! Who knew choosing exterior paint colors could feel like such a feat! For our project, we’ve decided to hire a pro to paint our home. In the quotes we received, each one included pressure washing, fixing cracks, and any repairs, plus the cost of paint and materials. If you decide to DIY the exterior of your house, make sure you know the full process and don’t skip any steps!

If you’re following along for the One Room Challenge, make sure to check out the other designers and projects here!