Choosing the Siding

We decided on vinyl siding for our home. There are a lot of options and we did a lot of research.

I love the look of wood. Even before we chose a house plan, I wanted board and batten or lap siding. I like “the real thing,” so we thought we wanted real wood. Did more research and we were inclined toward Hardie Board siding or one of the other fiber cement sidings. The look of wood, but stronger and longer lasting. Bugs don’t eat it.

Finally, we decided that vinyl siding is the lowest maintenance choice. It costs the least in the first place. I would kinda prefer to be able change the color, but it really is lower maintenance to not have to paint.

Once we had our house plans, I looked at all the options in the Schumacher Homes Design Studio and picked out a color I liked. Then I realized it was almost exactly the same color as the house across the street from where we were building. I picked a couple of other choices before Cliff went with me.

He started from scratch and considered everything.

The model is Hardie Board, so we talked that through again. We could have put any siding we wanted on the house we are building.

We came back around to vinyl siding again, but that can look like anything.

So we looked at pictures of houses with different vinyl looks. We got really creative, but went back to horizontal on the bottom and vertical at the top only in the front.

It looks like the picture and we like the way the picture looks.

Cliff saw the name Irish Thistle and picked the color from the name. It is a medium grey green. Not at all what I was thinking. But, I really love it!

The picture has a contrasting color at the top, but we agreed that we would rather have it all the same color with white trim.

The siding is made by PlyGem, the same company as the windows.

The last choice was the profile.

We picked Dutch Lap for most of the house. Dutch Lap is also called cove lap or German siding.

We chose Board and Batten for the top.

Building our New Schumacher Home
Step-by-Step: What to Look Forward To >
Installing the Vinyl Siding >