Painting Our Exterior: The Plan

I have wanted to live in a white brick home since I was a little girl. Both of my grandmothers were into interior design and always changing their homes– so this whole love of mine for interiors was instilled into me at a really young age. I would  look at their home magazine subscriptions and always found myself swooning over the painted brick homes.

I AM SO EXCITED! We have thrown the idea around of painting our exterior for a few years now and I can’t believe it’s finally happening. I did a few photoshop mockups so Tony could better visualize the finished look!

Our current exterior is just “meh”, “bland”, “eh.. it’s okay” to me. We bought this house in 2015 when it had just broken ground. The building company had already chosen and ordered everything for this home so we didn’t get to pick out hardly anything during the building process. It’s definitely not a brick I would have chosen, nor the shape of the large middle window. I do, however, like the stone! I’m just not crazy about the grout with it.

Here are the two renderings I came up with! I love both equally, so the ultimate decision of which trim will be a tough decision!

Paint Colors:

For the paint, I DO NOT want stark white. I am wanting more of an off-white or a creamy color for the brick, actually. I think it will be a timeless look and I just love the whole look  of it. I have looked online for paint colors and then searched on pinterest for what they actually look like. The paint samples online are WAYYYYY darker than in person.
Here are some of the paint samples I’m considering:

You’re probably thinking “those are DARK”.. See what I mean about the darker online? They are no where even near this color in real life. Swiss Coffee is a very high contender on my list, but I won’t know forsure until I get the samples actually up on the brick. I have Roman Plaster on my upper cabinets that I built for our basement bar! I love that color so much, but I’m wondering if it might be a little too dark for that light and creamy color I’m going for. I’m hoping to have a lot more samples in this week for me to test out before I paint (hopefully) this weekend!

Trim Color:

Beige vs. Black. DECISIONS ARE TOUGH. Tony loves the black trim (I do too), but I also really like the different look of the beige trim with the creamy brick. They are both night and day different. Which do you like best?

The Stone:

Here is the current state of the stone. I actually really love it! It’s a neutral color and luckily doesn’t have a ton of variation. I plan on adding a new lighter colored grout color to correlate with the new cream colored paint, and I’m going to use the over grout technique!

Here are some “over grout” stone inspiration photos I found:

 

I love the look of this technique! The grout lines are much bigger and sits almost flush with the surface of the stone! I saw the How-To on ChrisLovesJulia’s instagram stories when they did this to their master bedroom fireplace. The result is beautiful and has this vintage/rustic-y vibe.

Below is the (REALLY ROUGH) rendering to show you the different between our current stone to the over grouting that I’ll be doing! It just brightens everything up and will go so well with the painted brick!

 

I can’t contain my excitement and I’m pretty sure this is the most excited I’ve been for a project!!!! It’s going to be a big one and I’m excited to show you guys the entire process for my next youtube video!

Leave your comments below on which trim color you like best!!!! I am THE WORST at decision making– especially when I love both options.

For more stories on this entire process– follow along on Instagram! @katieperridesign