Our Exterior Paint Colors that Compliment Red Brick
Check out our exterior paint colors that compliment red brick. These colors will be great for any red brick home.
Ah yes, red brick.
How I love and hate you at the same time.
Red brick can be tough to work with – especially if you're not a fan of red 🙋🏼♀️.
However, if you're like me and it wasn't in the cards to get all trendy and paint your brick white, it's time to figure out how to work with the red brick.
In today's post, I'm sharing with you the process we took to ultimately decide on exterior paint colors that not only complimented the red brick, but made me happy and proud every time I pull in the driveway.
Let's get to it…
Table of contents
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Exterior Paint Colors We Tested
Here is the before photo of the side of our house before we got our new windows and painted the exterior.
The dusty pink is not the only color you can paint your house with red brick.
Nor do you have to go with a version of beige.
The key though to picking an exterior paint color that compliments red brick is to pick a warm gray or greige.
Of course, we all have different tastes when it comes to paint colors, but these four options are a great place to start.
You'll notice this picture is a little odd and not as professional as my photos usually are, but that's because I took this of the actual Samplize color samples I used to test these colors.
If you've never heard of Samplize, you are totally missing out!
Instead of buying paint samples and going through the headache of actually painting swatches on each side of your house, these bad boys are peel and stick!
You can get them in a ton of brands (i.e. Sherwin Williams, Benjamin Moore, etc.) and in any of their colors.
I used them to choose the colors for our outdoor living room too.
For the exterior of our house, I tested Mindful Gray, Colonnade Gray, Dorian Gray, and Agreeable Gray all from Sherwin Williams.
Another thing you have to keep in mind is which direction your house faces (i.e. north, south, east, or west).
This will determine how the color shows up on your individual home.
I did extensive research on our east-facing home and I'll share some of those resources in the sections below.
Here is what I discovered about these four colors…
- Mindful gray
- Gray and greige undertones with subtle bluish-green undertones
- Collonade Gray
- Warm greige with brown undertones that can hint a little bluish in north-facing lighting and shift slightly from green to purple depending on the time of day.
- Agreeable Gray
- Gray with a warm, beige undertone and can lean more beige or gray depending on the amount of light, but it's considered one of the purest greige colors.
- Dorian Gray
- Gray paint that stays in the warm gray category with subtle purple undertones in certain light. It can also show a little green at times too.
Each of these colors was part of the research I did for the best gray/greige colors for east-facing homes.
Our Exterior Paint Colors that Compliment Red Brick
So what did we end up choosing?
For the main siding color, we ended up going with Dorian Gray.
Look at how much of a difference it is from the sandy beige we had on their before from the previous owners?
Once we determined the main siding color (which was also the same color that I went with in our outdoor patio), it was time to figure out what color trim and accent color to use.
After reading this article on Gauntlet Gray, I knew this was going to be a great trim color.
We painted the easements, garage doors, and gutters in Gauntlet Gray by Sherwin Williams and then chose Iron Ore for the shutters and front door.
You can see the front view of our home in the section below.
Tips for Choosing Exterior Paint Colors
It's a little hard to get the full feel with all the foliage in front of the house, but it is a masterpiece!
These colors definitely compliment our red brick well, but here are some tips I picked up for choosing exterior paint colors that I think you'll find helpful…
- Don't judge the color when the paint is still wet.
- Totally thought I didn't like it, but its because I was looking at it before it dried.
- Don't just pick one color for everything.
- Consider a complimentary color for the trim, gutters, shutters, and front door to add dimension to your exterior.
- Don't forget to consider the undertones of your roof as well as the brick color and undertones when choosing exterior paint color.
- Always test the colors at multiple times of day on different sides of the house using Samplize paint color samples.
Want to watch the video for this post?
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I put together a video tutorial to add to this post, so you can see the full scope in real time!
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You did a wonderful job of picking out the paint colors!!! I am so glad our house is totally brick (and stone) so we don’t have to pick out any paint colors!!! Lol
The house looks great! What is your opinion on a soft white trim with red brick?
Thanks so much! I think soft white trim could look really good as long as it had a warm undertone. I would definitely do some testing first.
Absolutely love the color with the red brick. Can you please share the color used on the trim and garage?
Thanks so much Shawna! Absolutely! It’s Gauntlet Gray by Sherwin Williams 🙂
What color did you use on the main part of the house? I saw the name of the color used for the trim and the garage. Thanks
The main color of the siding is Sherwin Williams Dorian Gray! Let me know if you have any other questions 🙂
Christin – GREAT JOB with the colors – your home looks fabulous! Question – if your garage doors were front facing vs side, do you think you would have still gone with the Gauntlet Gray or might you have possibly considered Iron Ore to tie-in with the shutters and front door? Thanks!
Great question Kevin and thank you!! Honestly, I like to visually see it… sometimes dark garage doors can look out of place depending on the other colors of the home. When I drive around my neighborhood, I’m always critiquing 😂, but I think that could look good! Is your brick a darker red too?
Hi Christin – thanks for your response! My brick is similar to yours in hue. I may give some of your colors a try when I finally undertake this painting project! 😉
Thank you for sharing…you are spot on with the struggle with what to do with a great looking dark red brick. The trend is currently a lot of whites and grays however taking the mindset to commit to painting a great looking red brick to white is hard to digest because just not sure of the outcome. I took the risk of painting the brick on the fireplace brick on interior house white with the rest of house SW agreeable gray and was the best decision.
I have been researching online and taking pics in neighborhoods of home looking at exterior color schemes and what you have done looks perfect.
I have just one question which maybe I missed have missed in your specs and responses.
The under eves, overhangs which include patios, did you paint SW Irone?
You did a beautiful job! What color is the roof? I can’t quite tell. Thank you!
Thank you!! We did charcoal gray!
I love the color choices. What color were your windows? I would like to use these colors but my windows are dark brown and I am unsure how that will look.
These are actually black windows we got when we replaced them, so not painted, but tricorn black is a popular color for trim too.
Hi! I’m wondering if you painted your exterior window trim in Iron Ore? All of my window trim pieces are white, but I would love to have black or bronze trim…do people just paint over the white or do you have to buy new windows? I’m not a big fan of painting black on the exterior trim around the window, when all of the other white pieces are still visible. I hope that makes sense…I’m not real familiar with the terminology of window parts!
Thank you and your house looks gorgeous!!
We actually got new windows, so they aren’t painted, but I would definitely recommend it! It’s a gorgeous color.