Vibrant Brick Homes With Colorful Exteriors

Brick homes with colorful exteriors can transform the curb appeal and style of a house. Vibrant brickwork in complementary shades adds dimension, texture, and personality to any home's exterior walls and landscape. Beyond basic red bricks, creative homeowners and architects explore unique color pairings and combinations in brickwork accents, mailboxes, planters, doors, roofs, and detailing to make the home exterior pop.

Painting or staining brick may seem daunting, but colorful brick houses prove it can take a home's appearance from boring to bold. By mixing complementary, analogous, or triadic color schemes, brick homes showcase the design potential waiting behind those exterior walls. Even small pops of color through artistically styled brickwork create intrigue and visual delight.

Benefits of Colorful Brick House Exteriors

Homeowners choose to incorporate color into their home's brickwork for many reasons, including:

• Adds Curb Appeal: Vibrant brickwork attracts the eye and makes a home exterior more welcoming and lively.
• Reflects Personality: Creative colors and textures in brickwork enable homeowners to put their unique stamp on a house.
• Provides Contrast: Colorful bricks juxtapose nicely against neutral colored siding, stonework, or stucco on other parts of the exterior walls.
• Distinguishes the Design: Pops of color help the home stand out on the block with its unique style.
• Showcases Craftsmanship: Colored brickwork highlights the masonry skills and design details throughout the home's exterior.

The scale of colorful brick detailing ranges from small accents around windows and doors to entire exterior walls swathed in specialized hues. Often a home combines neutral brick walls with colorful accents across trim, mailboxes, outdoor planters, or stacked stone sections.

Popular Color Combinations

Some popular color combinations for brick homes include:

Black and Red Brick

The high contrast between black and traditional red brick creates drama and flair. Black window boxes, doors, roofing elements tie together nicely against red brick walls. Black's depth adds sophistication and dimension to the traditional material. Consider combining black brick with red clay or brown for a natural, earthy appeal.

Creamy Off-Whites

Cream-colored bricks soften red brick's boldness for a more elegant, traditional look. As a neutral, off-white brick allows red brick to stand out while unified color tones tie the whole exterior together. Try Benjamin Moore's Alabaster or Sherwin-Williams' Alabaster for a clean, airy white that works with most red brick walls. Ensure mortar matches the softer brick tone.

Warm Grays

Warm grays create cohesion across red brick exteriors without stark contrast. Subdued gray shares an earthiness with red brick that feels grounded yet updated. Grays showing undertones of brown, blush, or greige complement traditional red brick while adding a breath of modernity through neutrality. Consider brick shades like Iron Mountain by Benjamin Moore or Software by Sherwin-Williams.

Design Considerations for Colored Brick

Several factors impact which colored bricks homeowners choose for their exteriors projects:

• Overall Design Style : Colors should align with the home's existing architecture and design aesthetic, whether traditional, contemporary, coastal, etc.
• Landscaping and Roofing : Consider how colored bricks complement other existing exterior features like stonework, outdoor vegetation, fencing, or roof styles.
• Climate Conditions : Research how darker or lighter bricks withstand regional temperature swings, rainfall, wind, and snowfall exposure.
• Brick Type : Some specialty colored bricks have higher porosity, requiring adjustments to standard mortar mixes for proper bonding.
• Future Flexibility : Homeowners may want the option to someday remove paint or stain from original brickwork underneath.

Creative Techniques for Colorful Brick

Trained masons have various techniques to incorporate color into brick designs:

• Mix varying brick types randomly for eclectic patchwork walls.
• Precision cut specialty bricks into custom shapes for accents.
• Arrange different brick colors and textures into intentional patterns.
• Use mortar colors like deep charcoal to make subtle contrast pops against red brick.
• Paint brick exteriors across an entire house or just accent walls.

Precision cutting takes skill to angle bricks around mailboxes, outdoor planters, windows, and other exterior features. Various edging styles also allow added nuance, dimension, and creativity within brickwork designs. Consult masonry specialists for technical considerations before finalizing colorful brick projects.

Inspiring Examples of Colorful Brick Homes

The following homes showcase the dramatic potential when incorporating creative colors within exterior brickwork:

1. Black and White Traditional

This brick Georgian colonial uses crisp black and white contrasts to modernize the historic architecture. Black brick clads the bottom half of the exterior complemented by bright white columns, railings, window frames and door trims. Topped with a slate gray roof, the bold color block creates cohesion and flair.

2. Charcoal Accents

Muted charcoal mortar adds subtle depth throughout the red bricks on this craftsman bungalow. Charcoal window boxing and a front door provide bolder but still complementary pops of contrast. The cooler tones feel refreshing against surrounding greenery.

Soft sage colored bricks pair elegantly with off-white stone accents along the first floor exterior of this craftsman home. Red brick upper stories and an auburn door bridge the light and natural color scheme. Dark wood rafters tie together the exterior colors for a cohesive, welcoming curb appeal.

Homeowners feeling stuck with a basic red brick exterior should explore creative possibilities with color. Even small hits of color through brick accents, stacked stone sections, or mortar can make traditional exteriors exciting and unique. Consulting masonry specialists helps executecolorful visions properly.

Vibrant brickwork showcases trained masons' skills while reflecting homeowners' personal style. As a historical, natural material, brick adapts well to innovators pushing design boundarieswith color. Red brick provides a versatile background allowing creative pops of contrast and texture across siding, stonework, metalwork, and other exterior materials. Colorful brick homes intrigue passerby while creating dimension on formerly flat, dull surfaces.