Has anyone painted a brick house? How does it hold up? Do you know how they achieve that “whitewashed” look where the brick shows through a bit? Any experience with painting yellowish, rather than red brick?
A friend is buying a house that needs a major aesthetic overhaul, and painting it is one of the options.
Oh wow - complicated question. My first reaction is what kind of brick? A soft 18th c brick is definitely going to take paint differently than some 19th c brick or new brick. So there will need to be small test areas. Some bricks have modern sealants on them to repel water and I don’t know if they will take paint at all without some kind of removal of that substance, assuming it is possible to remove it.
On a more positive note. My in-laws 60s brick house was painted and held up very well. I think we are all familiar with varying degrees of successful paint on late 19th/early 20th c brick storefronts.
I am more familiar with parging than painting brick.
Parging? Have to google that. 
The house in question was built circa 2005, IIRC. The brick is predominantly light yellow with some pinkish and brownish variations. It really is not attractive. We’ve looked at some red brick houses that were painted in a way that looks like whitewashing: some of the brick shows through. It looks really nice. I’m thinking that doing the same thing on this house with a slightly creamy color might look good.
I understand what you are going for. Do you have pictures that show a house you could use as a model, in your color brick? I have no helpful suggestions but am very interested in the idea. There seem to be a bunch of youtube tutorials on painting brick.
Parging is a very traditional brick treatment, usually for chimneys. The brick is covered with mortar. The mortar can be an historic lime mixture or something more modern. In our case, we have used it sometimes to stabilize/preserve/cover-up crumbling bricks. It is never my first choice. If you think about English timber frame houses, that have exterior brick between the timbers, and that brick is covered by plaster - that is a kind of parging.
fachwerk: That is the word I kept trying to pull out of my head.
My parent’s house (1940s) was painted white. I think they painted it when they moved in and it lasted 20 years. Ditto my in-laws house. In some areas painting brick is very common. You should you a latex so the bricks can breathe. You don’t want to trap moisture behind the bricks.
Brick is low maintenance … but maybe not so after you’ve painted it. It’s good you are doing research. You can’t “go back”.
I found some info about whitewashing, as opposed to painting,
http://www.askthebuilder.com/whitewashing-brick/
Just to make it clear, this is a house a friend is buying. Not mine. 