Have you painted your red brick house?

[hawleybits]

Would this be madness? It's a small semi but I have a vision of it looking so much nicer.

Does anyone know the reality of this? Would it mean peeling paint that will be an ongoing maintenance problem or worse still devalue the house?

No dh to stop me being daft!

[Palomb]

I have seen people who had painted their red rock houses and without exception it's always looked bloody awful.

Why do you want to do it?

[Tiggeryoubastard]

Don't. It's what people did to council houses in the 70's. It always looked hideous. Even when freshly done.

[wonkylegs]

I have seen one or two that look nice (painted white/cream) and about a million others that look awful. Generally they will end up peeling and tatty as they take more maintenance than people are willing to give. Bricks in their original state are generally fabulously low maintenance, which is something we mostly take for granted.
We painted our yard walls white to brighten the small area up and that worked but we had to repaint every year or so to keep it looking nice and it was a bugger to paint not like painting inside.

[hawleybits]

Enough said. I've gone off the idea already

[YouSay]

Can you render and then paint?

[NicknameUsed]

What everyone else has said. We had painted rendering on a house and it does need keeping up with.

[SoupDragon]

I agree that painted brick always looks awful. If your bricks are ugly/ rendering and painting is the better option. It doesn't need repainting that often.

[Stopmithering]

Just to reinforce, painting brick is not a great idea. It does look rubbish generally and will need maintaining as it will weather and peel.
if you want to remove it, you end up damaging the face of the brick.
If you have a solid brick wall, you risk reducing vapour permeability and could trap moisture behind the paint.
I really like red brick houses.
Could you switch your focus to improving its appearance by painting front door, window frames etc? Nice door furniture? Smarten up front garden?