Victorian house, exterior bare brick walls: should I paint it, or render, or leave it?

[littlecrystal]

My house has developed penetrating damp and I want to fix it.
I called builders and the typical advice was repoint, fix cracks, seal and paint.

While I would love to paint those tired looking bricks (yellow clay) with bright light color, an internet advice is screaming to use lime mortar, no sealant and no painting bare bricks as it would damage breathing ability.
So should I paint? Or perhaps render and paint? Or just repoint and leave it?

For me painting would be lovely, but again I dont want any problems later.

Which is nicer by the way?

We have a victorian terraced house and some of the pointing needs doing, we were advised to use lime mortar as it lets the bricks breathe and will not dry too hard and crack the bricks.
Our backyard is north facing and very dark- we only get sunshine in it for 2 hrs in summer. We have however painted the walls white upto about 10ft, just to bounce the light back into the back rooms.

If you paint the bricks, they will need to redone every few years - so that expense would be something to factor in to any decision. Could you have the brickwork cleaned rather than painted?

According to my child type dad rendering if the work of the devil and makes damp problems worse. Or maybe he just needed something to complain bout on the flat I wants to buy

*about on the house I want to buy.

I must check, before I post.

I would get it repointed, definitely dont paint, I dont think brick painted ever looks good. I'm in the process of getting our first floor re-dashed and its a pain tbh.

Oh don't paint! I wish wish wish this house hadn't been painted - was done in 1970s. Is a pita. Needs repainting at great expense surprisingly often. The houses that are just brick look much more attractive. Is a period house though. Might feel differently if is modern.

Thank you. The paint was meant to protect from weather and rain but perhaps it does not work that way. On the other hand, so many houses are painted on our road and I dont believe they have more damp issues because of that.
Yes it is a period house with a bay window.

We have the back only painted (bought it that way) - and it looks really lovely. Not planning to change the front as I like it as it is. Both are nice, in my opinion.