Painting our Red Brick House White!

Painting our bricks white was definitely the biggest exterior improvement we have done to date! I love the look of white masonry paint, and I was SO excited to transform this red brick bungalow. 

Step 1: Prepping & Masking

Step one was taking a stiff brush and roughly cleaning out any cob webs or dirt that was stuck in the grout. This also helped us find any little holes in the mortar that we then filled with caulking.

Next we masked off the doors, windows, and the concrete parging around the perimeter with a combination of plastic sheets, drop cloths, and green Frog Tape (Frog Tape is by far the best painter's tape - it actually sticks to surfaces!). We are planning on replacing the soffit next summer so we didn't mask that off, but if you're not, then you'd have to mask that off too. The masking was honestly the longest part of the process. It took around 4 hours to mask/prep and only 1 hour to paint!!! 

Step 2: Spray the Paint!

We used Benjamin Moore's Aura Exterior paint in a flat finish. This is their top quality exterior paint (we figured that this was not the place to cheap out on paint!). This line of paint promises to not chip or peel when applied to masonry.

We settled on 'Steam' by Benjamin Moore for the paint colour and decided to use a paint sprayer instead of hand brushing and THANK GOODNESS we did - the sprayer was a breeze to apply the paint. We used the Graco Magnum Paint Sprayer by Graco. It was fairly easy to use, sprayed perfectly even and we didn't have any issues with paint clogs.   

We found that painting slowing in horizontal sweeps provided the best coverage. A key tip to note is that you can't hold the trigger in the spraying position for too long or you will burn out the motor (we've heard), so Brad released the trigger every horizontal sweep. Two coats were needed, so that was about 10 gallons of paint. We could have done a third to completely cover all the tinges of red, but it was already too late in the season for us (you need 15 degrees Celsius for the paint to properly cure). We are planning to do a few touch ups when it warms up again (and finish the chimney!). 

I'm thrilled with the transformation:

There are more videos of us painting our house in our highlights on instagram! 

We have big ideas for the front yard landscaping and are planning black accent windows, shutters and lighting to bring a modern feel to the home. Changing out the windows to new ones with black frames will make a huge difference - I can't wait to show you more progress! 

xx 

Nicole