I'm having nightmares about the exterior of our house looking like crap. Perhaps I'm drinking too much wine. Or not enough.
A few posts back I alluded to the fact that the brick is up on the house, but I didn't show you any pictures.
It's almost impossible to find gray brick. The bird-shit brick was one of two choices. The other gray brick looked almost exactly the same only fewer birds flew over. Initially I didn't think I would like it. Now I'm digging the white spatter.
Some in-progress shots. It looked much darker when it was going up because of the wet Mordor mortar.
See my front porch? What's wrong with this picture? Well, the fall is towards the house instead of away. If you guessed correctly, you win absolutely nothing.
And don't my keystones and sills look great? Yeah, you can't see them either right? I think they're going to get painted white. Even Philly's on board if you can imagine that.
I am loving the color of your brick!! It's a bonus that it will hide flying bird mess from every angle! In our dining room, we have a giant window above a set of French doors and the biggest bird ever flew by and shat all down it. That's our view while eating dinner. Too bad windows don't come in bird shat camouflage.
I love the grey brick! Excellent choice girl! Now...about that wine...have you been to Stone Hill? So fun..we should go!
Bird crap brick....if only the birds here were so kind, you always make me laugh! With are they using to screw up the wine tops? House is looking great!
Oh, girl! I love it! Can it be that I've never seen brick this color? I don't recall if I have, but it is fabulous! Bird crap cammo....catchy name! Dona
I'm so glad you love it! There aren't many houses ANYWHERE with brick this color. Mostly just reds/pinks/browns. I don't know if that's good or bad....
I love the options of brick out there nowadays. And, I love your light grey brick, does not look like bird crap at all! Looks gorgeous!
I like those things above the garage doors. Is that what you are calling keystones? I haven't ever seen that before. Nice job on the brick, too! Frustrating about the fall of the patio. Our last house had that issue. Fortunately we never had any trouble with it--if you don't count the termites that moved in...
Give the brick time to grow on you, like a mold or a fungus. I bet you'll love it. You can say it's built like a brick shithouse, which used to be a compliment of sorts. When guys thought girls had hot bods they'd say, She's built like a Mac truck, or, She's built like a brick shithouse. Do you think the shithouse expression is behind that song, which is now running through my head and making me want to choke you?
I love it! And I don't know why, but a literally giggled aloud when I read Mordor. Thanks for the laugh!
Oops, I'm actually glad I asked you for pictures. I love the bricks. I actually love the fact that they are not all the same colour exactly. To me their colour reminds me of old slate, which I adore.
And WHAAAAAT? Your wine bottle has a regular lid??? Where's the romantic and difficult to remove cork lid?
love the colors you are choosing! and i'm glad you had that tool to get that wine open. could have been a disaster!
Would love to share that wine with you Andi! I'm lovin' the brick, the house is going to be perfect!
I do enjoy the brick you've chosen!!! And your ingenuity at getting what you want!!! I think I could manage that bit of DIY.
Don't panic, Andi! The front door and the lighting and the landscaping will change everything and make those fifty shades (haha KIrby!) look fantastic. Until then, just keep those channel locks handy!
The brick looks great and had you not compared it to bird poop, I never would have noticed. It really does look great.
A brick tease?? That's nothing to what I've been called. Well, USED to be called. Back in the day when I was cute. Sorta. (Wish someone would call me a tease again.)
I guess it must be the wine that makes you think your house looks like crap, LittleMyoo! It looks completely fine to me. The bricks do match the roof's color, and that should be good, right? Sober or not, it looks okay to me. B-) FRANCISCO @ KatchMark.com
I never thought I'd like a grey house, but yours? It's nice. Warm. Friendly. And I think it will have wine. Lots of wine.
I couldn't wait to get out of my current gray home and build a brownish house. And then we ended up making it gray. Who knew?? And it definitely goes with wine.
Andi... So glad I stumbled upon this. The problems we had when our house was built (17 years ago) would fill a book! I found you because I am searching for images of gray brick houses. My house is mostly vinyl siding, a nice soft gray. We just had a new roof put on, which is a similar light gray. I am going for a contemporary, monochromatic look. We are also currently installing a new garage door in soft gray with pretty windows to open up the space that is currently a giant solid white wall of garage door, dominating half the front of our house (yuck).
We have one section on the front of our house that has very nice old reddish brick -- nicely done, but not fitting in my monochromatic theme. (Oh the horror!) There is a company in Britain called dyebrick.com that sells what seems to be an amazing product to dye existing bricks -- check out the gallery on their site. Looks pretty cool for DIYers like you and me.
Anyway... I needed a few samples of gray brick houses to send to them so they know what color I am going for, and they can advise me on the proper product for my project. (The comment section on their site makes it seem like they are very good about helping with this.) I can refinish my bricks for less than $100 -- wow!
I wanted to share this information with you in case you still have some misgivings about some (or all) of your brick. (Personally, I like what I see so far with yours, but I understand how you feel about some of the white ones not "doing it" for you. You are not crazy, and you are entitled to perfection to your standards on YOUR house.) I'm suggesting that you could custom-stain the few that are really bugging you (if they still are), and get the effect you want. Send dyebrick a photo of your problem, and I assume they can help you with a few spot-fixes for under $50.
Of course, I have not tried their product yet, so it might be total junk -- I would be happy to follow up with you on my experience.
Well, it's been a year since you posted these pics, and maybe you are cool with it all now. I just wanted to share this info with you in case you are an artist in search of perfection, like me. (Is that a blessing or a curse? Not sure.) I know how that feels. New houses are stressful, especially if the details aren't what you were hoping for. Thanks for sharing your pics and your experience.
Yay! Glad to hear you're happy with your brick. I've checked out some of your later photos, and they are perfectly stunning. Just amazing! I'm even more excited about my color choices now that I have seen yours. Now if I could just convince hubby to yank out the scrappy old shrubs in front of my brick section so I can get on with my gray transformation...