The Tudor House: White Painted Brick Exteriors & Alternatives

Who’s ready for a flip house update? I appreciate your patience on me sharing this project, as it’s been a long journey in more ways than one. If you’re new here, last year we bought our first (and maybe last?) flip house with some friends and another couple. Late last year I shared our design plans for a few of the spaces and after today’s post with more of the meat of the project, I’ll next be sharing the full reveal in the coming weeks! Today we’re going to shift gears a bit and talk about the exterior of the home and why a few of us on the project seriously pushed for a white painted brick exterior.

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The Condition of The Brick On The Tudor House

Before we jump into the pros of cons of white painted brick houses, I thought I’d remind you what the exterior of the Tudor house we bought looks like.

If you recall from my announcement post and “before” tour, the house had been left in disrepair for quite some time. We had to do significant repairs to both the interior and exterior of the home. As far as the exterior goes, most of the window frames and trim were rotten and all the windows needed to be replaced. But we could all see the potential to give this house new life and make it into a beautiful home! The nearly 100-year old brick managed to survive the bulk of the issues that the rest of the exterior faced. But the reality is, it just felt like a little “too much” especially with so many features already going on. Don’t get me wrong. I love a red brick house, and there were so many stunners on this street that I loved as is. But for whatever reason, the texture and color of our red-ish brick house just felt off. I was convinced we could make it beautiful regardless if we painted it or not, but I was leaning towards paint.

And, if you remember from my announcement post, there were three couples working as partners on this project. So, as you can imagine, six different people who are also all independent business owners in the industry are going to have differing opinions. Particularly as it relates to style choices and how and where we should be spending our budget. This was especially true once we realized just how much more expensive the interior expenses were going to be than initially planned. Cosmetic “wishes” don’t always make the cut list!

We spoke to a few neighbors and they all unanimously agreed it would look better painted. But I think most of them were just ready for something to be done with the curb appeal of the house to be more in line with all of the other beautiful homes on the street.

I’m going to save the details on what we actually did with our particular house for the reveal post (the exterior has been completed for five or so months). But today I wanted to share with you all the research we did and inspiration we found last year to ultimately get to our decision. I’m also going to briefly chat about limewashing, a painted brick alternative we considered, further down in the post.

Pros & Cons of Painted Brick Houses

Regardless if you want to paint the interior or exterior brick of your home, there are some pros and cons to consider! And one thing is certain: it seems that everyone has a very strong opinion one way or the other as to whether or not your should paint brick.

Pros of Painting Your Brick

• You can achieve an entirely new and fresh look simply by changing the color of your brick with paint or a limewash.
• Painted brick is just as timeless and classic as raw brick!
• If you’re house is a new-build, you can actually buy cheap brick if you plan to paint it which may help alleviate some of the expense! The biggest decision would be to find the preferred brick texture you want to see after your brick is painted (smooth vs. tumbled, etc.).

Cons of Painting Your Brick

• Painting your brick house is likely much more expensive that painting other exterior materials like wood and composite siding.
• There is a lot of prep work involved, including sealing of the brick, so the time and labor involved is much more in depth. You also have to ensure the brick is sealed properly so that moisture doesn’t get in the brick and damage it over time. This is why it’s also important to use a breathable paint.
• Unlike brick left raw, painted brick will require maintenance over the years, including frequent power-washing and paint upkeep.
• Once painted, it’s a fairly permanent decision.

Examples of White Painted Brick House Exteriors

As we were searching for inspiration photos to help finalize our decision (and to convince the guys this needed to happen), we found endless examples of gorgeous white painted brick houses. Some were more warm neutral based white, and others were pure white. Much of our inspiration came from the talented crew over at The Fox Group.  Unfortunately, I don’t know any of the paint colors shown below. But I do have some exterior white paint color recommendations if you need them!

This next image is actually from the same home shown above. But up close you can see all that gorgeous texture that the tumbled brick provides once painted!

This painted white brick Tudor renovation from Studio McGee was also very inspirational!

This image helped demonstrated how a stone arch around the door frame could pair with white brick since our house had a similarfinish.

Regardless of what we did with the brick, we had planned to go with dark brown window trim for some contrast. This also helped preserve a little bit of our original look.

This next home has such great curb appeal and shows how much the landscaping can stand out against white painted brick!

Limewash Brick Options

We knew we wanted a whitewashed brick look for the flip house, but also knew that didn’t necessarily mean we had to paint the brick. After getting a few bids back to have white painted brick, we quickly considered another alternative: limewashed brick! If you don’t totally hate the color of your existing brick, limewashing brick allows a lighter, painted look with some of your existing color peeking through. It also requires much less maintenance and allows the brick to “breathe” better. It gives more of a weather look and definitely requires someone that knows how to apply it. But it’s another great option that turned out to be much more affordable and still kept with the original character of our Tudor.

After seeing just how good the limewash brick exterior over at Young House Love looked using Romabio, it was something we immediately looked into! Although they applied theirs to be more opaque, you can actually make it much more transparent, as well.

And here is how the Romabio limewash looks when some of it is washed off. It’s designed to be applied to stone or brick and then you can wash parts if it off for up to five days before it calcifies! It was at this point in the learning process that I seriously considered trying it on our exterior stone at our house!

Alright, I hate to leave you hanging with what we ultimately did, but I’ll be sharing all the details when I share the big Tudor house flip reveal! I plan to photograph everything this weekend, assuming all the staging is out today, so I can share it all with you soon!

Additional Paint Color Inspiration

If you’re looking for even more paint color inspiration, be sure to check out these other posts by clicking on their titles below:

• The Best Exterior White Paint Colors
• The Best White Paint Colors for Interiors
• The Best Warm Gray Paint Colors
• The Best Blue Green Paint Colors
• The Best Blue Gray Paint Colors
• The Best Navy Blue Paint Colors
• The Best Green Paint Colors
• Whole House Paint Colors & Printable Paint Color Organizers
• How To Pick the Perfect Paint Color and My Top Five Neutral Paint Picks
• Paint Colors In Our Home (and Every Color We’ve Ever Used)

Free Paint Color Organization Printables

If you frequently paint your home like I do, it can sometimes be difficult to keep all your colors (and paint cans) organized! I recently created a free paint color organization printable set that I think you will all love!

Here’s how I use each of the pages:

• Page 1 – I print on white cardstock to complete and keep handy around our home or near where we store our paint.
• Page 2 – I print on these labels and add them to the paint cans for easy identification.
• Page 3 – I shrink to fit on an index card to keep in my purse, or print as is and fold up to carry with me at all times. I simply add a drop of paint and the room name.

Simply complete the form below and I’ll email the PDF files over to you to start using today! It will also subscribe you to my email list, however, you can easily unsubscribe at any time if that isn’t your thing.

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