Tess, I hope I'm not too late with the following advice. Don't ever paint brick. Your house is a simple design, exterior wise. Paint wont fix it. What's missing is a designed garden. Even the simplest brick house can look like an inviting, lived in home when it has a structured garden surrounding it. For less than the price of paint, invest in a landscaper to design a garden that will soften and greatly enhance your homes street appeal ...and add many $ in value. Painted brick detracts from value and has to be repainted periodically, defeating the purpose of brick, which is, no maintenance. Besides, your house, painted white or cream as has been suggested here, would stand out in the street like a proverbial sore thumb. Trust me, landscape, starting at the street boundary and leave the bricks alone. Good luck.

I recently saw this episode of Ask This Old House where they demonstrated painting tiles - especially as a solution to get one through till an entire redo is possible. http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/tv/ask-toh/video/0,,20902001,00.html Looks like you are doing a great job!

The colour scheme and amount of paint coats you need depend on the paint brand and what you're trying to do.

I have recently brought an older home and stripped the wallpaper as I didnt like it. It is lath and plaster on walls and ideally I would like to be able to paint the walls without wallpaper. A gibstopper said he could do a skim coat to even it up a bit but couldnt guarentee the old plaster cracking down the track. My options are 1. skim coat, prime etc and then paint 2. Put a wallpaper/lining up and paint or 3. Reline walls with GIB so I can get smooth painted finish as desired. What have people done or would recommend???