Colour to brick or bag? this is the question...

The hardest decision to make as a couple is the choice of colour and the overall look. In the early days my husband would have lots to say about colour schemes, 10 builds later he leaves that to me. I have the good fortune to be able to visualise the build, colours, placement of furniture, placement of power points, overall look and feel for trends now and the future in my mind. Hubby on the other hand is 2 dimensional so he excels in the dollar department and leaves the colour decisions to me, I share my thoughts and generally he agrees. TIP/NOTE: The first thing to think about external colour is the tone of the home i.e. light, medium or dark. 1st step - What façade are you choosing? this will assist determine your colour scheme wether you will have render, bagging, face brick or a bit of both. I generally on each build have started with the exterior walls as for most of us that's at eye level, the largest area you generally see on a regular basis.

We spent Saturday visiting PGH brick yard display to commence the search for the basic brick - for no extra cost. We have the front rendered as part of the façade we have chosen ($11.5K) but the remainder of the house is in face brick. Of course with my champagne taste, none of the bricks I liked are in the standard no cost range...possibly one at a push. To upgrade to dark brick of choice was a further $10K. We had put in our build price off white mortar TIP/NOTE: Natural mortar can make the brick colour darker and sometimes dirty looking if you are looking for light colours. Off white mortar is brighter. Generally the brick colour will determine your accent colours like gutters; facia; windows; down pipes etc. Be sure to visit a display yard to see the bricks in a wall. 

After much discussion in the end we decided to go with bag and paint, we will take off the build price the cost of the off white mortar colour $2.5K and upgrade the façade to incorporate bag and paint the whole house for $5K in the end it will cost us the same but we will have the correct colour tones in my mind. Off to Bunning's now to get Dulux colour charts.