How We Painted Our Brick Home - Life Under Budget

Alright, I think the painting saga has drug on long enough! I am excited to take you on the journey that is ‘painting our 1950’s brick house.’ As some of you know, I was reluctant to paint the brick for the longest time. Thank goodness some of you reached out and set me straight haha because it turned out amazing!

So here are the many ups and downs, and laborious days of painting our house. I also included:

A budget break down on all the supplies we used
Roughly how much it would have cost us to hire professionals
Our cost to paint it ourselves
A list of all the tools and supplies needed

How It All Started

So, originally the plan was to not paint the brick. The thought was to refresh the soffits, fascia boards, and the area of siding around the front door. We started with the fascia and soffits and they looked amazing with a fresh coat of paint after all the time we spent prepping them. What I couldn’t get right was the color of the siding by the front door that was alongside the brick. After much trial and error to get a complimentary tone with the brick, we decided to scrap that plan and just paint the brick! …And thank goodness we did!

The Prep

Don’t even get me started on the time and effort of this portion. The preparation to paint is by far the most time consuming and laborious portion of the project. If you go into a similar project like ours, just remember this aspect of painting. After doing all of the prep, I think I now know why painting bids are so expensive. It’s not the paint itself, it’s the labor of the prep and there is just no way around it.

Ok, here is the rundown on how we prepped. You don’t need to do this exactly in this order, because I’m sure we did not do it in the most efficient way possible.

First, we power washed the entire house.

Next, we scraped all the old flaking paint off of the fascia board and soffits.

After, Gunnar used an electric palm sander to sand down all the rough edges from scraping.

Then, another round of light power washing of the fascia and soffits.

After everything was dry, we filled in all the holes and caulked all of the gapped seams.

It may seem like just a few steps, but don’t let that fool you! This portion took us weeks to complete and we were so sick of it. Though, all of the agony of the prep work was SO worth it in the end! The prep made for a very easy paint job and it helped for everything to look clean and new.

Priming The Soffits and Fascia Boards

Once all the dirty work was finished, it was time to prime! We chose to prime for a few reasons: Some fascia board was added when we reroofed and was not sealed. On portions of the fascia, Gunnar sanded it down so well that most of the existing paint was off anyway. The soffits were painted multiple times over the life of the house and the last color happened to be a very dark brown which was going to be challenging to cover with white paint. Lastly, the ceiling of the carport was sealed wood, making paint more difficult to adhere.

We chose a stain blocking exterior white primer in hopes of better coverage of the existing color we were to cover. After just one coat of primer, the house already started to look better and brighter. The second coat of primer really sealed the deal that we were on the right track with our exterior refresh.

Painting The Soffits and Fascia Boards

After painting two coats of primer, it actually made painting so much easier. To make decisions easier for myself and my memory, I decided to use the same color white as I used for all the trim inside, Benjamin Moore Dove White. The tricky part was deciding on the sheen; flat or soft gloss. I love flat paint because it hides imperfections. The downside is that it is not as washable as a more glossy finish. I have flat/matte on the majority of the inside walls so I am a sucker for keeping things consistent. Though, I ended up choosing Benjamin Moore Exterior Soft Gloss. We put a lot of effort into the prep that the imperfections should not be glaring even with a gloss, and being an exterior, it’s important that it is somewhat washable due to the elements.

Two coats of paint later and we couldn’t believe the shiny goodness that we had just created. It looked amazingly crisp, clean, and bright!

Priming/Painting The Brick

Starting this task was a huge leap of faith! There was no going back after the roller first hit the brick. I had the primer tinted at 50% the final color of the brick for better coverage. This was in hopes we would only have to do one coat of primer with only one coat of paint. There was no way we were going to do any more coats than necessary!

We had all hands on deck! Gunnar and my in-laws used the rollers to cover the body of the house with primer, while I mainly focused on the detailed areas with a brush. The amount of time to get all the primer on, took a little over one solid day.

The tinted primer looked great and it wasn’t even the final color of the house. Some of our neighbors thought we were finished with painting the house and were blown away it was still only primer. I think that goes to show that our original brick needed a definite facelift!

While I finished up some details with the primer, Gunnar and his dad started on actually painting the brick. They had finished a portion of the front of the house when I came around the side to look. Holy cow was it so gorgeous! I was so nervous that I had chosen the wrong paint once again, but all that doubt washed away once I saw it on the house over a large area.

This time with the paint, Gunnar was rolling the main portions, his dad was on the detail work, and I stepped in to brush away any drips as they went along. Since we were trying to get away with only doing one coat of paint over the primer, Gunnar was rolling it on thick. This caused some drips to form in the crevasses of the brick and in the mortar joints. Taking a brush and brushing the drips out without adding any more paint to the brick seemed to help. Though, I would have to go brush many spots multiple times as the drips would not stop forming. This task kept me busy while the two of them cruised along with the paint.

The Budget Breakdown

We knew of a few people who had their brick painted professionally and have roughly the same amount of paintable space. They were kind enough to share with us the cost associated with hiring out the job at roughly $7,500. We knew we had a lot more prep work to do on our soffits to even get them ready to paint than the people who had their house painted did. So in our heads, that number would most likely be even higher. The cost of hiring professionals was the sole reason we decided to tackle this project on our own.

I kept track of all our expenses for this project from start to finish and compiled them into a spreadsheet…because that’s my Type 1 personality. Also, maybe if you are in the mindset to paint your own brick house, you may get some use out of it.

Left out of this spreadsheet are the expenses of my own indecisive-ness on paint colors in this final spreadsheet. But you can add about $200 to the total because I bought an additional six paint samples and three gallons of Rockport Gray Exterior Paint when the plan was to only paint the soffits (Full Disclosure.)

Another thing to note, you can buy paint in many sizes but usually a gallon is most widely purchased. With the high volume of paint we were using, we could have bought it in five gallon buckets instead of single gallons. Though, I was too nervous to commit to the five gallon buckets and opted for the single gallon buckets because they happened to be the same price in this case. Plus, there was no way I would be able to lift a 75 lbs bucket to pour paint out and not make a disastrous mess!

Also, here is a list of all the additional items we used for this project that didn’t add to our total cost because we either already owned or borrowed them.

The Final Product

It is amazing what paint can create! The house looks so much more updated and bright.

Our house is no longer the sore spot on the block. Yes, it could still use a bit more landscaping, but that will come later. As for now, we are going to take it easy and try to finished the last 2% of painting. But we sure enjoy driving home from work to a beautifully painted house!