have you considered just painting over the brick paint in brick coloured paint
paint creates a water barrier. You might think this is good, keep water out of your house after all. That's true, but it also traps moister in. This means over years the moister will dissolve the bricks and cause them to crumble. This means you will have to replace the bricks in a decade or so. So, you made your house look fresh, but at the expense of a huge bill in a few years when you have to tear down the outside of the house and rebuild it.
House constructions has far more detail in it then I think most folk realize.