Best Ideas for Painting a Brick House in Mason City, Iowa

Make the Most of Your Brick Home Remodeling Projects

Brick homes are popular in Mason City and beyond. For a lot of homeowners, nothing beats their classic aesthetic, appeal, and durability. Plus, brick homes stand out from many others on the block.

But every once in a while, you might get an itch to change the look of your brick house. If you’ve ever wistfully looked at the paint aisle of your local home improvement store, you’ve come to the right place. Today, let’s break down some of the best ideas for painting a brick house and go over some key things to consider so your home remodeling project goes smoothly.

Use masonry paint when painting brick houses

First and foremost, never use standard paint when painting your brick house. Regular paint traps moisture within brick surfaces, which can lead to rot and decay over time.

Instead, you should use specialized masonry paint. In a nutshell, masonry paint is a unique type of paint designed to be used on stone and brick exterior surfaces. You can use masonry paint on brick, concrete, lime, plaster, and several other materials without running into the common problems you’ll see if you use regular paint.

More importantly, masonry paint is mixed for longevity and external wall protection, sealing bricks away from exterior moisture and air. Thanks to the chemicals and minerals used in masonry paint, it usually lasts longer than normal paint, even if your house is often exposed to inclement weather, like Mason City snowstorms and summer rain.

You can find masonry paint at most home renovation or paint stores in a variety of paint colors.

Neutral colors are always ideal for painting a brick house

Speaking of paint colors, when it comes to painting a brick house, neutral colors are common go-to picks for homeowners.

Why? Neutral colors – like beige, gray, and classic white paint – are timeless in a way that brighter shades aren’t. From time to time, temporary color fads take over the country’s collective home décor consciousness, leading many homeowners to repaint their abodes in bright hues. But neutral colors are always in style.

Perhaps more importantly, neutral paint colors often look better while you are between fresh coats. You’ll have to at least touch up your house’s paint every 10 years or so, if not repaint it entirely, so that’s an important thing to consider.

But bright colors give your Mason City home character

On the other hand, you could opt for a bold, bombastic paint color that makes a statement and stands out from the other houses on the block or in your neighborhood. But you have to pick the right color for it to stick.

Bright colors could be great choices when painting your Mason City brick house. Shades like green, blue, and yellow might go perfectly with the prairie home aesthetic you want to cultivate or make your home feel just a little more unique and personalized compared to other houses.

Our advice? If you do decide to go with a bright paint color, stay away from bright red – that color’s liable to make people think more of fire trucks or barns than houses!

Contrast your primary paint color with your entry door color

Whatever color you choose to paint your brick house, be sure to contrast your primary pick with the color of your entry door.

For example, if you paint your brick house green, consider painting your front door yellow. If you choose to paint your house white for a refined, classic look, a black door can add even more elegant appeal to the building.

Complementary colors are good for drawing the eye to the entrance of your home. Bright door colors are also in style – many take after the “doors of Dublin” phenomenon currently sweeping the country.

Paint edges or highlights instead of the whole house

Painting the brick walls of your house isn’t the only way to give your home a facelift. If you want to save a bit of money and labor, consider only painting the edges of your brick house or coloring the highlights instead of the entire structure.

For example, adding a colored, highlighting line to all the borders and ridges of your home can make it look like new and more visually interesting while only requiring a fraction of the paint needed for a full, fresh coat everywhere.

As an added benefit, painting just the edges or select highlights means less maintenance work for you in the long run. Whether you use masonry paint or not, painting a brick house once means painting it again and again in the future. So, when you pick up your paintbrush for the first time, ask yourself whether you’ll want to do the same amount of painting some years down the road!

Leave some things unpainted on your brick home

What you don’t paint is often just as important as what you do paint. Many brick house homeowners are creative with their home remodeling projects by leaving specific areas unpainted, like protruding fireplaces, chimneys, garages, and the outsides of bay windows.

By leaving some surfaces unpainted, you can showcase the beautiful unpainted brick layer of your house while still painting over it elsewhere. It’s a good way to demonstrate the age and quality of your house while also benefiting from the aesthetic upgrade of a fresh coat of paint.

Be sure to prep your brick house before painting!

One last tip: never paint a brick house without doing proper prep work beforehand. Brick is a sensitive painting surface. Therefore, you should thoroughly clean the bricks you plan to paint with a mixture of soapy water. Use a stiff-bristled brush to clean away as much grime as possible. Then do some power washing to blast the bricks clear of dirt and debris before applying your first layer of paint.

After that, fill in any cracks you notice with acrylic caulk. Give the caulk about 24 hours to dry, then start painting. That’s a lot of prep work, but you’ll thank yourself later when your bricks stay in good condition for years and the paint looks phenomenal once it’s all applied.

Painting your Mason City brick house can be a ton of fun, but it can also be a lot of work, especially if you’ve planned several remodeling projects at the same time. Maybe, for example, you’ve decided to swap out some old windows with new energy-efficient windows. After all, your old windows will likely get a bit of paint on their glass surfaces by the time you’re finished.

If you’re looking to streamline the window renovation process, Window World of Mason City can help. Contact us today or visit our showroom to check out our extensive selection of energy-efficient, insulating windows!