Both are done to improve the appearance. Looking at before and after pictures of brick that has been repointed, the after pictures look dramatically better. Before and after painting not so much.
That depends on the brick and generally applies to very old brick. However, sandblasting can be very rough on bricks. Other more gentle techniques like soda blasting would be preferable for removing paint.
Wow! Can’t recall ever posting anything here on which I garnered so much agreement! 
ISTR a while back speaking with a neighbor who remodels houses, and he said there are penetrating stains, as opposed to paints. I believe he said the stains were quite pricey, but were the way to go.
I guess much of it is simply personal taste, but I grew up in a brick house, and I like the look of brick. Once in a great while I’ll see an imposing INTERIOR wall of brick around a fireplace, and if the brick is really ugly, or the wal very imposing, painting/staining it can be an improvement. And I will acknowledge that not all painted brick exteriors look BAD to me. But I don’t think ANY of them look better painted than unpainted. IMO, there are plenty of ways to update a home’s appearance without permanently defacing the brick.
I cringe when HGTV shows have a remodeler paint brick, especially interior brickwork like fireplaces. It shows disrespect to the original designer and era of the house when it was built. I cheer when the occasional owner comes out and says the brick is off-limits as far a painting goes.
The same can be said when they paint woodwork that was originally stained a natural wood color. Oak woodwork in this part of the country (northern midwest) has a Nordic influence, so when someone paints it white, it seems to me that they’re trying to change it to a Florida or California look.
Many years ago a friend bought quite an expensive new house that was still being built. He told me the builder was using what I think he just referred to as “used brick”, and I remember wondering at the time why anyone would do that, especially to an upscale new house. I understood immediately the first time I saw it. Freshly laid old brick in a new house looks really beautiful and adds character. ISTM that many new brick designs try to mimic that look. Painting brick seems to hew in exactly the opposite direction, so in any situation I can think of I’d oppose it purely for aesthetic reasons if nothing else.
I don’t think well of beautiful brickwork being painted. But some brickwork is nothing but brickwork, not at all interesting, all bricks exactly the same, with spacing that looks the same as fake brick facades. Even the factory made plastic facades are made with some color and pattern variance. I think painting select bricks to create a some character in a wall is an excellent idea. Sometimes brick interiors were never meant to be seen. While enhancing the overall appearance of a room sometimes, even if exposed brick is better than drywall it doesn’t always fit a room best and if painting helps I’d consider that better than covering it up altogether. And I would prefer painted brick to fake bricks.
I’ll point out that when I say ‘paint’ I’m talking about an appropriate substance to be used on brick.
I highly disapprove of good looking natural wood being painted. No one should ever do that without my express written permission. Now, I think I’ll authorize you as my agent in this matter, duly authorized to pass judgement on painting wood based on your knowledgeable opinion of the subject.
However, you seem to too rigid to decide on variances to allow brick painting for now. Perhaps if you study on the subject more you could attain that position.
For everyone, paint can be removed from bricks with lasers. Wood also. This is pretty amazing emerging technology. The use of lasers to remove corrosion from metal has improved from paint removal from metal, to brick and stone, and even wood. The laser is somehow tuned to cause it to vaporize a paint coating without harming the material underneath as long as it can withstand temperatures of 149°F. Possibly too hot for some glued work like veneer, I have only seen videos of wood being cleaned so far, but it appears to do what it claims quite easily.
I’m quite interested in the subject of paint removal myself because directly behind me is an exterior wall of my log cabin which is now the interior wall of an addition. That wall had always been covered by a porch so remained painted after I removed the thick horrid disgusting contemptible coat of paint from the rest of the exterior with a concentrated lye stripper 25 years ago. Now removing it from the interior is an ugly job. Soda blasting (sodium bicarbonate) behind a plastic curtain is a possibility, as is a variation called dustless blasting that combines water with sodium bicarbonate so it airborne dust is limited.
Thirty-five years ago, we bought a 50s house with the brick painted white and the wood siding above a dark blue. It was fairly hideous. But I don’t live outside the house looking at it. That’s my neighbors’ problem.
When we got a chance, we put aluminum siding on. They had just developed a color-fast dark red, and that turned out to go perfectly with the white brick below. Our neighbors didn’t like that color either at first, but later said they changed their minds as it settled in on them. So you can definitely make painted brick work as a complementary effect.
The paint does need uptake. We’re looking for a painter now. But that’s a lot better than repainting the entire house.
I fully agree - w/ respect to what I will call “older” traditional fireplaces. The ones I don’t mind are when the fireplace is set within a floor to ceiling strip of nondescript brick. I had a niece who had such a setup in brick I would call pinto pony colored - a godawful mix of black and tan bricks from floor to ceiling. Believe me, that atrocity looks better painted.
It is not and cannot be an all or nothing proposition. There are several factors at play. Aesthetically, I have no preference one way or the other, as long as it’s done well.
Some old brick is too soft and porous to be left exposed. This becomes more critical as it ages, since there’s not really a way to fix it.
Brick that was sandblasted (usually to remove paint in the first place) needs to be repainted to keep it from deteriorating.
Any paint does need to be vapor permeable. It doesn’t have to be super high-tech or anything, but it does need to meet a certain specification.
Matching brick and mortar when patching or repairing is hard, and often impossible. Painting is a way to mitigate that, and I don’t think anyone should be faulted for going that route.
Brick itself isn’t maintenance-free. The mortar needs repointing from time to time, and poor repoining, such as using portland cement mortar on old soft bricks, can cause the bricks themselves to crumble. Paint can be a poorly maintained brick wall’s last hope. This includes a wall that was subject to climbing ivy.
Another point on maintenance, cleaning brick isn’t necessarily simple either, and paint can freshen up a wall that’s failed to come clean after pressure washing, scrubbing, and sealing. I do think those techniques should be tried first, but sometimes even those could be potentially damaging.
Where I live there’s lots of painted buildings, mostly because of historically soft local brick, and also a history of air pollution that predated pressure washers and masonry-safe detergents.
When my mother died, I inherited a small cedar chest that had been painted (several times, as it turned out). One fine summer day, I took out to the driveway and stripped it all away (I hate that stuff–use it outdoors only) and then sanded lightly and sealed it. It came out beautiful and we put in the vestibule and kept sweaters in it. Sadly, I had to abandon it when we downsized to a condo.
I was horrified one day to look out at a red brick house across the street to find that flippers had painted it grey. It looks like a prison. Except for my yellow brick house, all the houses on the street are red brick. The grey looks so out of place. But some of the other neighbors like it. There is no accounting for taste.
It just screams cookie cutter life.
When I was a kid in the late 1950s-60s, we lived in a neighborhood where houses were being built. Our house was unpainted brick, but the look of “used brick” was fashionable, and some of the new houses achieved that by painting their new brick white. After a few years, the paint would begin to flake off, and they got the look they wanted.
Go figger out fashion!
A guy I know was showing me the building his business operated out of and he asked me what I thought of the brickwork. Heck, it was brick. I said it looked fine.
He explained that the pattern was the same pattern McDonalds used for their original stores. He was surprised I didn’t notice it right away.
I don’t think I’d recognize McDonalds “original” brick, either. Then again, the McDs in my town replaced its original brick about 50 years ago.
I’ll quote what I said earlier:
Many years ago a friend bought quite an expensive new house that was still being built. He told me the builder was using what I think he just referred to as “used brick”, and I remember wondering at the time why anyone would do that, especially to an upscale new house. I understood immediately the first time I saw it. Freshly laid old brick in a new house looks really beautiful and adds character.
Those homeowners who thought that “they got the look they wanted” very likely either didn’t understand or didn’t appreciate the aesthetics of used brick in new construction. Used (or “recycled”) brick is considered a premium construction product from an aesthetic standpoint for good reason. The idea is not that it looks like shit, which is probably what their weather-worn paint looked like.
The pain is real! It’s the ugliest wall in my house. The fireplace unusable as is, major demolition will have to occur to concrete brick applications as it’s departing from the outer wall. Involves a hearth stone along the wall. Chimney has been rebuilt all is good up there.
$$demo remodel and woodstove insert.
That’s all I want
Huh. Interesting.
House across the street from my deceased mothers house is now brick painted white. They also did a black iron fence and white brick posts and white brick ‘posts’ for the fence. Looks good IMHO.
I thought the original MickyDs were red and white striped tile.
I grew up in one of CHicago’s bungalow belts. Ours was the 3d yellow on the right. I always liked the ones that were two-tones in a checkerboard pattern.