If you have a brick home, then you may think you’re stuck with whatever colour of brick your house was built with. The reality is that you can make changes to the exterior look of your brick home with some carefully applied paint. There are lots of pros and cons to painting brick, and you need to be careful before you jump in to the project. Here is a list of what we think homeowners should consider before they go ahead and paint brick, as removing that paint later can be extremely difficult.

The Upsides

Refurbish Old Brick: Due to weather conditions, bricks can change colour over the years, though they don’t fade naturally. If different areas of your home are exposed to different elements, then the colour of your home may end up looking a bit patchy. Painting is a great way to elevate old brick and make it look new again. It can also update a house that was build when different colour schemes and styles were more popular.

Easy to Maintain: Brick walls are notoriously tricky to clean, but painted brick makes cleaning brick walls much easier. While it will still be more difficult to clean than a flat wall, painted brick prevents the brick itself from holding dirt, debris and potential bugs.

Protection: Paint helps protect brick walls from moisture intrusion as well as mould growth. As long as the prep and paint is done correctly, it will help protect your home from the elements.

The Downsides

LOTS of Prep Work: When you’re going to paint your home’s brickwork, you need to do a lot of prep work to get ready for painting. You’ll need to remove any dirt and algae from the brick before you can paint it which can be labour intensive. There are products available on the market that will help you do this and coatings that you can put on the brick before you paint.

Maintenance: Once you paint your brick once, you’ll need to continue to paint it whenever it starts to fade, chip or peel. If yon don’t your paint job can become unrepairable and you’ll need to remove all the paint and start from scratch. It’s important to make time to do a walkaround your home’s exterior to see if any touch-ups are needed and keep your brick looking great.

It’s (mostly) Permeant: You can technically strip paint off the brick, but it is incredible difficult to do and most often you still end up with specks of paint trapped inside the brick. Once you paint brick, it’s most often considered to be permanent, so make sure that is truly what you want before you start painting.