Painted Bricks?

[homer]

My home has a brick fireplace. Half of the bricks were
black so we went ahead and painted the the bricks but
the colour looks dark now.
The colour we wanted was something that is similar to
brick color. Do you know what colour that might be that
is almost close the natural brick colour. Or can you
suggest a colour that would look good on bricks? We
asked the stores and no one really knows.

[FionaS]

Difficulty is that different types of bricks are different colours depending on what they're made of and how long they're fired for. Plus there's a certain amount of difference from brick to brick of the same sort as well! I suppose that classic red brick colour is near terracotta and you could try getting some small tins of paint in a similar shade maybe more brown and stippling it on with a sponge to try and get a more textured effect. Good luck!