New build, brick we originally selected is no longer available, and we're in a time crunch to select a new option. We don't like the other white-ish bricks they have available, so they have offered to paint regular brick the color we want at no extra charge. Sales Agent originally advertised it as mineral paint, but has since come back and said it is specifically PPG's Speedhide Exterior 100% Acrylic Latex paint, with their Perma Crete Brick Primer underneath.

Honestly, was pretty bummed it's acrylic instead of mineral, just based on my limited research.

Am I worried about nothing with the acrylic? I always assumed this was pretty high maintenance compared to mineral, as far as frequency of touch ups, peeling, and overall look.

Where are you building, if you don't mind me asking? Because this same issue came up with a few homes where we're building, and thankfully they managed to get the original brick we all chose.

We're building in Katy, Grayson Woods neighborhood, through Coventry Homes.

Stucco / stone / other exteriors is not an option anymore. It's an all brick exterior home. We wanted it to be all brick to begin with, and it was actually the cheapest elevation option

The time crunch is on their end. The contract does state that there would be a possibility of having to reselect brick due to availability at the time of purchase. The brick we actually chose is not just unavailable; there's a color variation from the factory for all new orders of the brick, and the neighborhood will no longer accept that brick because of its difference from the original samples.

The other brick options close in color to what we originally selected were not good, at least not what we wanted.

Aggie_Family4 said:

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We bought a house with the ugliest brick I had ever seen and knew that we wanted to paint it. However, everything I read said that it is a nightmare and you do not want to paint your brick and will have to re-do it every 5-10 years.

We came across a mineral based paint company out of Georgia called Romabio. This stuff is incredible. We bought it from Acme brick and had it tinted to the "color" we wanted. We did the painting ourselves in 2 weekends. I cannot endorse this paint enough.

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This is what I assumed we were getting because ACME is suppling the brick. But the neighborhood HOA is only allowing certain colors from PPG, and PPG doesn't offer mineral paint.

You say you did the Romabio yourself? Or you hired someone to do it? If yourself, how difficult was that? If hired, do you mind sharing the cost?

aggiechip said:

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Aggie_Family4 said:

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We bought a house with the ugliest brick I had ever seen and knew that we wanted to paint it. However, everything I read said that it is a nightmare and you do not want to paint your brick and will have to re-do it every 5-10 years.

We came across a mineral based paint company out of Georgia called Romabio. This stuff is incredible. We bought it from Acme brick and had it tinted to the "color" we wanted. We did the painting ourselves in 2 weekends. I cannot endorse this paint enough.

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This is what I assumed we were getting because ACME is suppling the brick. But the neighborhood HOA is only allowing certain colors from PPG, and PPG doesn't offer mineral paint.

You say you did the Romabio yourself? Or you hired someone to do it? If yourself, how difficult was that? If hired, do you mind sharing the cost?

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you're SOL buddy. I know because we just did the same thing. The brick we wanted was on 14-week delay. So we painted our choice of white and we'll just have to deal with it over the years.

You will be at the mercy of the HOA and Coventry is going to give you a bunch of mumbo jumbo (the home next to my new build is coventry).

It's going to be some Jose's that go to PPG or SherwinWilliams, pick your color and then spray it on in 1 day. You ain't getting 2 coats, you ain't getting something special - that's the world we live in right now with builders and subs.

hate to be the baron of bad news, but just trying to manage your expectations.

Yes, we did the Romabio ourselves. We have a one story house, so it was not too difficult at all. Bought a good paint sprayer and a bunch of supplies and went to town. The application of the paint was phenomenal. Two coats and it was good.

We had gotten estimates anywhere from $8000-$12000 to paint the brick. We did it ourselves for under $3000 for paint, materials and the sprayer.

I can't post pics but if you give me your email I can email you a before and after.

Aggie_Family4 said:

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We bought a house with the ugliest brick I had ever seen and knew that we wanted to paint it. However, everything I read said that it is a nightmare and you do not want to paint your brick and will have to re-do it every 5-10 years.

We came across a mineral based paint company out of Georgia called Romabio. This stuff is incredible. We bought it from Acme brick and had it tinted to the "color" we wanted. We did the painting ourselves in 2 weekends. I cannot endorse this paint enough.

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Thank you so much for this paint recommendation. I am getting ready to paint my brick, and after reading your post, I messaged my contractor and told him to make it happen.

Sweet Kitten Feet said:

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An HOA that's THAT anal about the brick color is really going to be ok with painted bricks? Color me shocked. And screw overly-anal HOAs.

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indeed - they also only allow so many painted brick homes per XX. Painted brick is an in-demand look these days so they'll limit what's allowed.

However, our neighborhood is still being built out so the developer/builders still technically control the HOA.

Aggie_Family4 said:

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We bought a house with the ugliest brick I had ever seen and knew that we wanted to paint it. However, everything I read said that it is a nightmare and you do not want to paint your brick and will have to re-do it every 5-10 years.

We came across a mineral based paint company out of Georgia called Romabio. This stuff is incredible. We bought it from Acme brick and had it tinted to the "color" we wanted. We did the painting ourselves in 2 weekends. I cannot endorse this paint enough.

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endorse this post - we did the exact same with ugly brick house and romabio! its an awesome product.

they still have the option to do bricks, they just don't like the options... so, what else do you do? paint.

baron of bad news would make a great username! (Don't mean to pick on your misspelling.)

The guys across from us built a shed (most likely to be the new 'headquarters' for their electrical business) behind their crappy house. It is bigger than the house. Brick around the bottom was a really good match to the house. Then they painted it white to match the rest of the shed. Surely they used some crappy paint. Will be interesting to watch it peel in a few years.
Oh, they also got busted for not having all the necessary permits.

I'll ask the question as we are in the building process right now. When did you choose the brick you wanted? Did the contractor not order it? Or did you just nail down the choice?

I got REALLY frustrated when I learned the shingle color was not available. We chose the day they asked us and 3 weeks later the shingles we chose were not available.

Not a huge deal on shingles but we've made it very clear moving forward that we want to make sure that we want stuff ordered when we choose it.

https://www.sherwin-williams.com/ProductDisplay?storeId=10151&urlLangId=-1&productId=454002&urlRequestType=Base&langId=-1&catalogId=11051

ChoppinDs40 said:

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aggiechip said:

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Aggie_Family4 said:

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We bought a house with the ugliest brick I had ever seen and knew that we wanted to paint it. However, everything I read said that it is a nightmare and you do not want to paint your brick and will have to re-do it every 5-10 years.

We came across a mineral based paint company out of Georgia called Romabio. This stuff is incredible. We bought it from Acme brick and had it tinted to the "color" we wanted. We did the painting ourselves in 2 weekends. I cannot endorse this paint enough.

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This is what I assumed we were getting because ACME is suppling the brick. But the neighborhood HOA is only allowing certain colors from PPG, and PPG doesn't offer mineral paint.

You say you did the Romabio yourself? Or you hired someone to do it? If yourself, how difficult was that? If hired, do you mind sharing the cost?

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you're SOL buddy. I know because we just did the same thing. The brick we wanted was on 14-week delay. So we painted our choice of white and we'll just have to deal with it over the years.

You will be at the mercy of the HOA and Coventry is going to give you a bunch of mumbo jumbo (the home next to my new build is coventry).

It's going to be some Jose's that go to PPG or SherwinWilliams, pick your color and then spray it on in 1 day. You ain't getting 2 coats, you ain't getting something special - that's the world we live in right now with builders and subs.

hate to be the baron of bad news, but just trying to manage your expectations.

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"the baron of bad news" is fantastic, whether accidental or intentional.

Depends on how long you plan to be in the house. If this is some forever home, I'd revisit this other brick colors, make sure I wasn't being unreasonable with how I evaluate their look (being truly ugly vs disappointment of not being what you wanted), and do everything I could to find one I could be live with. I would hope there are some basic colors that would be fine and may just need a chance to grow on you, But if this isn't forever, the the paint maint is less of a concern.

Sweet Kitten Feet said:

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I'd look at different brick options if it were me. Even if it wasn't the perfect color I'd still prefer brick than painted brick.

That said I have no experience with the specific types of paint on brick other than aesthetics, and anecdotal stories from friends who have fought painted bricks for years.

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This right here - The house my ex wife got in the divorce was mostly siding but also had areas of painted brick. It was always a nightmare to deal with from all the peeling and crap that it did. I will absolutely never own another house with that.

It's been fun watching how other people where I live who painted theirs have dealt with it over the 10 years I've been here. Looks like they tend to go for about 5 before another coat gets slapped on, except for a couple people haven't bothered to redo yet. Those are looing pretty crappy now.

Also I don't think any of them took into account that stuff that gets kicked up by raindrops will have to be kept clean or else the bottom 3' get dirty looking pretty quick.

No one in our neighborhood has done painted brick yet, but the majority of the people in our neighborhood are doing stucco, stucco/stone, or stone/brick elevations. There are hardly any all-brick.

We chose our brick initially in Dec when we signed. By the time we had our final pre-construction meeting at the end of Feb and we were signing our final contract, that brick and just about any other good brick was not available

As far as painted brick goes, the Romabio looks like great option. Great reviews about the longevity of it. Debating to do that after closing.

The Arcylic process the builder is offering actually looks high quality. Assuming they do it right. I called the PPG consultation service and they said it should last 15-20 years before re doing it. Unless something takes us away from Houston work wise, I expect to be in this house at least 20-25 years. So I would expect another coat at some point.

Intentional

Is lime washing not an option? Looks pretty good to me and definitely holds up again the weather.

htxag09 said:

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That's brutal. It's one thing to buy a 50 year old home and painting the brick because it's ugly as hell. But painting the brick on a new build.....seems doomed from the start.

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Friend of mine built a pretty big custom home with a bunch of random bricks because they got them super cheap. They knew going into it they were going to be painting so they saved some money on the deal.

There are several new construction $1M+ build in my neighborhood where they ended up painting the brick. Blows my freaking mind.

Do not do this.

Maybe people like the way it looks?

Do not paint the brick. It's too hit it miss for folks regarding selling.

Looks horrible to me and I had no clue it has become popular. I don't think it has ever been popular.

kubiak03 said:

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Do not paint the brick. It's too hit it miss for folks regarding selling.

Looks horrible to me and I had no clue it has become popular. I don't think it has ever been popular.

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But what about the pink brick on the house?! What looks worse?!

Paint. Pink brick can be worked around with landscaping and is at least a maintenance-free surface.

Rice and Fries said:

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kubiak03 said:

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Do not paint the brick. It's too hit it miss for folks regarding selling.

Looks horrible to me and I had no clue it has become popular. I don't think it has ever been popular.

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But what about the pink brick on the house?! What looks worse?!

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according to my builder... "If everyone had their wish, every house in this neighborhood would be painted some form of white or grey right now".

They're limiting how many homes can be light brick or painted right now due to the demand.

And this is a neighborhood where the low-end homes start at $550k right now.

Just saying.. it's popular and very much desired. White is classic. Just go to pinterest, you'll see.

It is funny. The developers are in control of the HOA still, so it is all self imposed issues. I would call BS on the brick with the color variation not meeting the HOA requirement. They want to go the easy route.