Hi Sandra, Being in a marine environment either option you go with will require a bit of maintenance over time the salt air is pretty unforgiving. If you do decide to go with render make sure you go with an acrylic render it will last alot longer and avoid cracking much better than if you go with a traditional cement render only. Generally the cement render is applied and then the acrylic render is applied over the top this makes the cement render a lot stronger and more flexible. You can tint the acrylic render to the colour you wish so if you want you don't even have to paint it. Although some people still apply a bonding agent and paint it regardless. Good luck with your project I hope it turns out great.

Check out this discussion - there are sooooo many options!!! [https://www.houzz.co.nz/discussions/have-you-remodeled-a-fireplace-lets-see-it-dsvw-vd~790201[(https://www.houzz.co.nz/discussions/have-you-remodeled-a-fireplace-lets-see-it-dsvw-vd~790201) Here are our before .....

I really loved this brick when we found it and I still do, but I do have some comments about it. Unfortunately my design brief for a "fireplace hearth" in my farmhouse for my firebox turned out much bigger than expected, but that's another story. As far as the San Selma smoked cloudy silver brick is concerned the brick layer didn't like it much. It was a bit crumbly for him. There are even a couple of cracks already inside the brick hearth. We will have to be careful when securing our mantle piece to it. I don't know that I would do a whole house in this brick. As far as the look of the brick I love it. Its earthy, and suited my farmhouse profile inside and out. It does matter what colour the grout it. It really matters. I wasn't too happy with the grout choice by the bricklayer and should have taken more care to think about it. It's darker than I wanted. Take the time to work out what grout looks best. The same as you would pick a paint colour. We also struggled to choose a colorbond roof colour for where the outside of the brick was seen. We chose Windspray. Doesn't match perfectly as windspray is more yellow/green undertones....(something we are learning as we go along) but it's only a small area seen and hopefully we will find a paint to blend it all together.

@Lizzy B all went smoothly. the most time consuming part was installing all the battens into the brick followed by corner ends. This was harder because I cladded not only the wall shown with the 3 windows but also the whole front of the house which includes multi steped recession into the front door meaning lots of internal ans external corners as you will see in this next photo. most people would usually just paint this recession to door area rather than clad it because of how fiddly it is and so many short cut boards but i decided if i was going to do it, I would do it all prroperly. it all still looks fantastic and as if i did it yesterday.