What Colour Bricks?

I know bricks can give you a headache if you hit your head with it, but I didn't know thinking about them can have the same effects too. Since we've decided to build our own home, I've been paying attention to the look of houses when I'm driving (I know, it's dangerous :p) What colour bricks did they have? What colour roof goes with what colour bricks? And more recently, I started noticing rendered and weatherboard facades as well.

It's never been like that before for my first 2 properties in S'pore. Buying HDB flats and condominiums, the building facade is the job of the developer and I only had to worry about the look of the interior. Now, we have to dig deep and think about details that most people walking past your house would not even notice. Like roof pitch, colour and type of roofing. There are 2 general types of roofing - Colourbond or cement tiles. Each has its range of colours to choose from and the cement tiles also comes with different patterns. The permutations on its own is endless.

Then there're the bricks. Different colour bricks can give different effects to the look of your house. And there are like about 60 types of bricks available for us to choose, with fancy names like "Canterbury", "Blackwood" or "Red Trevallyn" to confuse. Not just that, you can also add fancy details to the facade. Like rendering some surfaces to give a different texture and coloured finish. Attractive stones and tiles has also been used to make the facade stand out and be more attractive

We never used to notice before when we drove around the residential estates. But now, when I drive down our street, I'm checking out every house, all different cominations of bricks and roof, all with its unique look and character. I'm also checking out the types of windows, colour of window frames, colour of doors and garage doors. Should I render the facade? Or half-render? What colour window frames will go with the bricks? I have experienced colour coordination when I do patchwork and have to decide which fabric to use but this is way more stressful. In patchwork, the worst that can happen is you unstitch and start again or you just chuck it aside and never let it see the daylight. But for my house, what if I get it wrong and it turned out not as I'd imagined? A bad combination of ALL these can make your house a very ugly, sore thumb in the neighbourhood. Not just that, it will haunt you everyday you come back to the house. So I must get it right. And that is why I'm having a headache.

The worst part is, I have no way of visualising how my house will look like with this roof and that bricks. All I have is one black and white 2-D drawing of my future house and I can only use my imagination to colour on the bricks, window frames and doors. My husband, being a typical man, has never paid attention to small details. To him, every house looks pretty similar and pretty good. But me, being a typical woman, likes to think about those things that men never bothers. Maybe I should just take a step back and look at the big picture. Just pick a brick colour that is soothing to my eye and ta-dah, let it be.