How to pick exterior paint colors that go with brick
Choosing exterior paint colors that coordinate with existing brick requires deciding whether to complement the brick or paint over everything else instead. Trying to guess how off-white paint and black trim will look against unpainted brick leads to uncertainty about how to properly match the elements without clashing.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1looking at what nearby brick houses are doing with black or blue paintDid this help you?
- 2Walking into home improvement stores and asking for paint fan decks for free.Did this help you?
- 3testing paint colors and surface heat transfer using a piece of plywood and an infrared thermometerDid this help you?
- 4focusing on insulation, windows, and air infiltration instead of paintDid this help you?
- 5using specialized heat-reflecting paint available in various colorsDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“How important is color for energy-efficiency? It gets a LOT of direct sun in the front but is somewhat shaded in the sunroom on the back.”source ↗
“Any tips on how to pick paint? My mom has shown me a paint tested with colors like red and green that I do like, but I’m worried about the high electricity bill going up even more.”source ↗
“I love the peel and stick samples, but they get expensive after a while.”source ↗