YOU GUYS!!! There’s nothing that I love more than the planning and creating process of transforming a space into something I adore. I’ve been so passionate this year about designing the interior of our home. It’s something that uses all my creative juices. I have a unique and eclectic taste. I love a little modern, fun, contemporary, mid-century, romantic boho (you should see the kid’s playroom that I’m working on! Can’t wait to share!), simple, clean, bold, etc.. I love it all. I carry around bits and pieces of each style that flows into the next room. I’ve realized that I haven’t asked for much advice from anyone about our home because I want it to reflect everything I love instead of someone else’s style or trend. And honestly, I’m so opinionated about my funky style in our house that I’m afraid to hear that someone else doesn’t like it, haha. By making sure that I’m undeniably obsessed with everything I put in our home, it’s become a sanctuary that sparks joy. And thank YOU for popping over to this corner of mine. It’s because of YOU that I’m able to use my passions to redesign spaces and support my family. I couldn’t do ANY of this without your support. All the messages, comments, and love.. I read every single note you send and it melts me. I feel too lucky to have such kind readers!!! I pray and hope to be a place of encouragement and information. Have a question? Drop it in the comments below!
I am so excited to finally share the exterior transformation of our house! This has been a long time coming. We started planning in the spring, began the 1st project beginning of July, and finally finished everything in late October. I’ll share all the details including the cost and colors on this German Smear project and Paint project!
If you knew how much the kids loved these spooky spiders and here . They had so much fun watching their daddy hang them. We simply hot glued them on to the brick and stone. Works like a charm! You can also use outdoor command hooks if you have a painted house.
Pair of chairs found HERE.
Black Plaid Door Mat found HERE.
GERMAN SMEAR:
Quick note + PRICE. A true german smear uses a sand mixture (mortar) to cover the brick while a whitewash uses a thinned-out paint mixture to cover the brick exterior. Since I love a thick, slathered brick I opted for the German Smear. Also, a whitewash application requires maintenance since exterior painted surfaces always weathers and fades. And since I wanted a “1 and done” job, a true German Smear was our best option. It was slightly the pricier option. I requested multiple bids to gauge how expensive this project would be. I entertained the idea for a hot second to do it ourselves. haha. The price range for JUST the german smear was $4500-$10,000. I went on our local FB city group and researched all the information I could find on “masons” and “mortar work”. I read reviews and eventually decided to hire Mario. He was PHENOMENAL to work with and the most kind worker I’ve dealt with. And his pricing is super reasonable! And after hiring A LOT of locals over the last year to help us in our home renovations, that’s saying a lot about him. He doesn’t know that I blog, but if you’re needing any type of brickwork, email me and I’ll send you his phone #! UPDATE: Ton’s of emails from y’all, here’s Mario’s # 972-838-5592.
Moving on to the german smear project. We really weren’t thrilled with the brick color on the house. It was very brown. And what we didn’t like even more was that the mortar wasn’t a nice bright color, which would have made it look much better, rather a greyish- brown color, so it just looked blah. I think the brick/mortar made it look like a much much older home, even though it’s only a few years old. We did a lot of research into changing the mortar color, painting brick, lime washes, but fell in love with the look of a german smear. Basically mortar is spread into the existing mortar lines and then on to the brick. You can have it as light or heavy as you like. Since we didn’t like the brick color, we wanted a lot of coverage. We worked with the crew manager for a few minutes until everyone understood the look and style we were going for. When they came over the first morning, they also did some samples on the wall to let us choose how yellow or white to go with the mortar. Originally we had thought more color in the mortar would look good because the white looked so bright in the sun. We had them start, so they did a good section of the back of the house…. and we hated it! It looked super super yellow. I thought we had destroyed our house!
Hideous, right?
We talked to Mario and decided to pressure spray it off the house and instead add less “color” to the mortar, leaving it much more white. Y’all, his team spent half the day putting it on and the 2nd half of the day taking it off. I felt terrible, but so did he and he simply wanted us to love the job. He did’t even charge us for it (although we made it up to him 😉 ). Since we hadn’t yet received approval from our HOA, we only completed the backside of our home. 2 weeks later once HOA approved, we completed the rest of the home. The project took roughly 4 days total with a crew of 4-5 workers. It has made a huge difference to the look and feel of the house. We absolutely love it!
After the German Smear was finished!
PAINT:
Before this project, all of the trim, siding, gutters, garage doors were the same yellow-beige color. Now that we had the brick covered with the German Smear, we loved the idea of doing a complementing bright color for the siding, and a very dark paint for the trim/garage doors/shutters to create fun outlines by highlighting the details. I have loved our experience with Behr paint (we painted the entire interior of the house with Behr: see the painting project with before/after photos HERE), and have heard Behr Marquee exterior paint is awesome, lasts for ages, and has tons of colors that are guaranteed to cover in one coat. So, we decided to use the Marquee paint for all exterior paint. Picking exterior paint can be a very tricky. The paint will look different when its cloudy vs full sun. When it’s sunny outside, the undertones in the color you choose will come out like crazy. So when you’re putting paint samples against the house, make sure to see what it looks like in the shade AND the sun. So, if you pick a color you love in the shade then you might consider dropping 2 shades darker since it will certainly appear 2 shades lighter in the full sun. We picked a satin “Dove” for the white color for the siding. It looks creamy on the paint chip, but on the house it’s a pretty bright white in the full sun. As for the trim/gutters we chose satin “Espresso Beans”. With the garage doors + trim around the front door + and the gutter downspouts, we went with a FLAT black: “Night Club”. Initially, we painted the garage door with the Expresso Beans, but I could not stand how shiny and brown it looked on such a big surface, so we bit the bullet and had them repaint that with the flat black and now absolutely LOVE it! I would not recommend a satin sheen for such a large dark surface. A local paint company with great reviews gave us a good bid (we had multiples ranging from $3200-5200), so we had the most affordable and best reviewed company do the project. I would highly recommend them (email me for their direct #). (UPDATE: Texas Star Painting, Casey helped us with our project 817-891-7255) We also had them refinish the front door with an Ebony stain to make it darker and take away the yellow/brown stain that was there before. I could have painted the door a black but I LOVE the woodgrain beneath the stain. I try to avoid painting a dark paint over wood pieces at all cost. It took about 3 days for them to finish, but we didn’t mind since it was all outside work! Hallelujah!
Here’s our finished home!
SHUTTERS:
To finish off this huge project, I wanted to add black shutter on top of the white german smear. My husband built these for us. We weren’t sure the exact style we liked, but after visiting Waco with my sister-in-law and going to Magnolia Table, I saw shutters there that I loved! They had 4 wide vertical boards and 3 horizontal. We decided to do a similar design. Aaron did all the measurements to match the windows (same vertical height as the window and approx half of the width for each shutter). He bought cedar fence boards and cut all the wood in our garage using a miter saw.
The smaller window on the first floor was quite a bit shorter than the others, so we liked the look of 2 horizontal boards better for that window. We had the painters spray them with the same flat black paint we used for the garage. Aaron and his brother-in-law hung them with concrete anchor screws drilled into the mortar lines. It took about 4-6 screws per shutter.
PAINTED PLAYHOUSE
I had been searching high and low over the last year for a swing set. I can be such a sucker for finding deals on used items. I eventually found this gem of a swing set for $50 on a FB garage sale site! We pressure sprayed it and disassembled a few pieces. Aaron spent a day painting all the wood (he took off most of the plastic pieces to paint) and it looks as good as new. Such a darling play house that nearly matches our own home, haha. I’ve had TONS of y’all message me on Instagram asking where this set can be found and it’s been discontinued. How sad, right?! If I find another affordable option, I’ll update it here.
Before
After
Have a comment or question about the German Smear process or exterior painting project? Leave it below and I’ll respond asap!
Hey:)
Do they paint kitchens? And will they go out to Fort Worth?
Author
I used Texas Star Painting for the exterior paint job. Super pleased. I know they paint everything, so yes to painting kitchens, but not sure about Fort Worth. Call Casey, he’s the one we worked with: 817-891-7255. Best of luck!
Your home came out so nice! I’m in love with the white brick look! Awesome Job!!!!
Author
Hi Kara,
Thanks so much! We absolute love it too! Totally worth all of the effort.
Hot glued the spiders on the house?! Tell me more!!!
Author
It’s true! My hubby and I looked at different options, but we’ve heard of people using hot glue for christmas lights on flat surfaces, so my hubby wanted to give it a try. It worked out perfectly! Even with a few good wind/ rain storms. He hot-glued one spot on each leg of the spiders. Most of them popped right off when he took them down this week (some required a little bit of scraping with a flat-head screwdriver). We’ll hang them the same way in the future for sure!
Hello! New reader! Currently purchasing a house and I found you.
I’m curious to why you didn’t paint the exterior bricks where your front door/chairs are at? If I made sense- lol.
@happilyeveralanis | Happily Ever Alanis
Author
Welcome to the blog! I didn’t add the German smear to the area near the front chairs because it was a pretty stone that I wanted to keep!
Omgosh, absolutely gorgeous! I am brand new to your account and a Dallas area resident… was it hard to get the HOA approval? Just curious! Your home looks amazing!!!
Author
Hi Erin,
Thank you!! I did two separate HOA requests, first for the German Smear, and then the paint/shutters. I just included photos of what we were going for and thankfully didn’t have any issues!
I am building a house and planning to do the german smear. When they lay my bricks they will do it with white mortar and then they will go over my house with the white mortar wash. When I read your article about how it turned yellow- was that from the mortar color you chose?
I am a little nervous about doing the whole process. I am using Mosswood brick by Boral. From what I have been told, that it is a good ideas to use a tumbled brick- meaning it is not totally smooth.
Author
Exciting time! And I definitely get the nerves. I was so nervous about our project! The yellow came from the color that they add to the mortar. I’m not sure if this is every kind, but with the one used on our home, the mortar was white and there was a yellow sand mixture that could be added to give more color. The first section that was too yellow had too much of that added. When they re-did it and finished the rest of the house, they barely used any of that color mixture. I would have them do a small sample for you and make sure to see it completely dry because it looks so different when it’s wet. Best of luck!!
New here from Idaho!! Did you paint your siding?! Was it something other than the plastic kind? And what material was the black trim on the front of your house?
Author
Hi Nicole! Yes! We painted the siding and I shared the color information earlier in this post 🙂 It is wood siding and trim (i think!!) Let me know if you have any more questions! xo
Hi there! I love your page! Your kids are so adorable and you and your husband are the cutest!!! We just bought a home that we love (minus the brick) in DFW north suburbs and are currently painting and updating a few things before we move in next week. I looooooove the German smear that you did on the outside of your home. After I saw your IG post, I wondered about ballpark cost, maintenance and HOA approval. This post was the answer to ALL of my questions! I’m hoping we can get this done to our home! Thanks for posting!!!
Author
That is too sweet of you to say!! You should definitely do the German Smear. We absolutely love the way ours turned out and would do it all again…maybe just sooner! Best of luck!
I just had someone German Smeared my house but I’m not in love – not sure why but it didn’t turn out like yours- I don’t think they put enough plus the trim is a poop brown lol that my husband said to leave – I think that’s the issue. I would also like to put some barn door shutters maybe if this is stained dark the trim would look so bad – I painted my front door red for the pop! Any suggestion or could I send a picture?
I just had someone German Smeared my house but I’m not in love – not sure why but it didn’t turn out like yours- I don’t think they put enough plus the trim is a poop brown lol that my husband said to leave – I think that’s the issue. I would also like to put some barn door shutters maybe if this is stained dark the trim would look so bad – I painted my front door red for the pop! Any suggestion or could I send a picture? I live in Houston
Author
Oh I’m so sorry you don’t love it! After ours was done it looked better, but I didn’t love it until the trim, garages, were painted black and the black shutters were added. I would definitely add shutters, it would make a big difference! I’m sure it will turn out great! Best of luck
Looking for the paint colors. Behr has a Dove gray. Is this the color you used?
When it rains does it look wet or did you guys seal the German smear?
Author
Yes, it’s just a mortar and so there’s nothing to seal. It just looks wet 🙂
Did you have to get a brick masion to do the German smear? What was the cost if you dont mind? We have a 2600sqft home we would like to do single story i think our home is way smaller than yours. Thanks for your response Tj
Where did the curtains on the back patio come from? They’re so beautiful!
Author
Hey! I got them from Ikea 🙂
Your home is beautiful!
I didn’t even know German Smear was a thing and now I need it in my life. I love the brick work used in homes in the US. In Canada we don’t have a ton of brick homes. Sigh – this is lovely
I’m so glad I found your post! I’ve been wanting to do the same to our house but I wasn’t sure What it would look like and which type of coverage to go with. I happened to find a pic of our house today online that was really bright and made the brick look like it had a German smear look. I love this! Wish you were in Houston, I would totally use your peeps.
Hello! Did you do you get this done to your house in Houston? Just curious because I’m outside of Houston looking for recommendations! Thanks!
What’s Mario’s number? Where you located.
Author
He works in north DFW. 972-838-5592
Does Mario have a business name?
Hello there from nearby Frisco!
Holy cow, I am drooling over your German smear and trim color. I’m curious, in retrospect, would you still choose to paint your eaves Espresso Bean and shutters/downspouts Night Club black? (since you changed the garage doors, etc afterwards) Do the two different colors give it additional dimension, or would you have gone with 1 single trim color?
Thanks!
Your house is beautiful!! And my definitely want to try these spiders next year!
I am also interested in the choice of Espresso Beans and Night Club. I’m picking colors for mine and trying to decide if I should do 2 shades vs my hubby says just one. Did you go with 2 colors for added dimension for an increased shadow look, or to tie in roof color? Would you still pick the same?
Hi, I live just outside of Fort Worth, My house is similar in size but was wondering about how much does something like the Smear cost. I realize every home is different but I certainly don’t want to be stunned with an estimate if it’s completely out of reach. Thank you so much,
Abby Gibson
Author
The range for our home was around $4,500-$9,500 from 3 people. I would get a couple of quotes so you have a comparison and can find someone you like! Best of luck!
I see you painted the entry way floor brick with the german smear technique. Has it worn off significantly from walking on it?
Author
They put some glue in the mortar when they did the german smear, but even with that, there has been some wear on it. We’ll probably have to re-do it every 2-3 years. It’s the only place on the house where we’ve seen any wear though.
Such a nice blog on home tour: exterior German smear before and after. And I hope you keep update us with such great tips and information in future too. This is a great post; I will share as much as I can.
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Please post specific mortar product used and where purchased.
Author
It was hired out, sorry!
We just moved into a new house with German Smear, and I’m at the point of wanting to do edging for the landscaped beds. I love how yours look, it appears to be 2 pieces; a flat piece with maybe a retaining wall block on top of it. Do you have any information on that?
Author
Yep! We first laid leveling gravel to make everything level and sturdy, then the pavers with a cap. We glued the cap on to hold better as well. Very inexpensive way of doing it. Hope that helps!
Hello. Loving your remodel. Curious, did you put a new black roof on or use roofing paint? Also, have the black painted fascia and downspouts wore well with the weather? Thanks for any informations!
Just found your post on german smear. Beautiful!
Did you need to add a white colorant, or is that the natural mortar color without the added yellow?
Thanks for sharing!
Dana
Author
Hey Dana! This was the natural color without adding a lot of “yellow color”. I hope that makes sense!
Hi, do you know around how much this costs?
HI!!! so in love w this brick thing. im finally going to do it for our home. I know this is a post from 2 years ago. but reading the post you mentioned adding color to the mortar, and in your reply to Janene above, you mantion not adding “a lot of yellow” can you tell me what mortar product was used and what color did you add if any?
I’m curious if you did anything to the stone part of the house, it doesn’t appear so but we are going to update our house. The front is brick and stone. We are considering using the German Smear on the brick and Limewash the stone. Still looking at our options and figuring out what might look the best. Thanks!
Love love love your German smear… l want to do a heavy coverage much like yours as well. I have about 1/2 brick only in front so a lot less of a job but trying to decide if a need a masonry ?? I have a painter who is also an artist who want the job. What is your recommendation?
Thanks so much
What is the name of Mario’s company, or does he work for himself? We live in the area and are wanting to have done to our house exactly what you did! It looks amazing! I left a voicemail at the number you have posted.
This is an outstanding post that’s filled with so many useful nuggets. Thank you for being so detailed on home tour: exterior german smear before & after!
This is absolutely as you know beautiful!!!! I am curious what mortar they used to where it comes with a tint and what color did you go with in the mortar? Did not see anywhere this information. Thanks
Nice and informative post. We have to select the right decorative things according to your need or requirement. Painting is the essential part of decoration so we should hire who can paint your house with perfect and desired style.
I love the decoration for Halloween. Would try it this year.
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This is a very informative and useful post. We need to choose the right ornaments according to your needs. We should find a professional to paint our home in the desired style.
This is a very nice blog. It is great to see that you are interested writing blogs. It may seem simple but it is not easy as the paint must match the home’s colors. Based on family recommendations, I hired a professional painter one year ago. But I didn’t see the results I was expecting. It is clear that no one can meet all of your expectations in any field.
This is a great article! These services are definitely worth considering. Before hiring a painter, I will make sure to follow your advice and ask my family and friends. Thank you for sharing.
its really interesting blog i hope your readers read this blog again and agian.
What color is your roof? We are going to German schemer our house and we are change the roof color as well.
Hello! Love your house – I was wondering for your exterior paint regarding the siding- you mentioned satin “Dove”- espresso bean, and night club… are those Behr? Thanks!
thanks for sharing this amazing piece of content with us. Keep it up with good work