progress report: siding

so here is a quick shot of what the front of the house looks like right now.  the hardie board siding looks good right?!  but compared to that barn wood siding....well it falls short big time.  its kind of a puke-y yellow color so björn and i are eager to get it painted as soon as we can. 

originally we really wanted to paint the south house a lighter blue-grey color.  this was our plan all along, my grandfather did an amazing rendering of the house based on a color i had picked back in september.  however, after seeing how beautiful our barn wood turned out we were feeling like the south portion of the house needed to be able to hold its own without competing with the barn wood and that light blue-grey was just not going to cut it.  it seemed kind of weak.  

while björn and i were in new zealand two years ago we noticed many of new houses had black or very dark colored siding and we both really loved it.  i don't think it ever crossed our minds to paint our own house in such a bold dark color.  now before everyone gets a little scared i have rounded up some photos which are good examples of how black or almost black siding can look very elegant.  if you will notice all of these homes have beautiful bright white trim which is key to the house not looking darth vader like.

black board and batten siding Battle Associates Architects via Houzz

dark dark green siding and beautiful white trim- Birdseye Design via Houzz

i love this swedish house with charcoal grey siding
- Ike Kligerman Barkley via Houzz

Ron Brenner Architects

Union Studio Architects

Are you convinced yet?  Björn and I are really loving the richness of the dark colors and the white trim just makes it look so happy!  We have narrowed down our choice to a Behr paint color called Evening Hush.  I am going to do a little research tomorrow to see who has the best exterior paint and also who has the best price. If all works out we will be painting the house at the end of this week.  The weather here is pretty good for painting, warm but a little cloudy.  I hope that we can share photos of the finished Hardie Board soon!

Evening Hush - Behr
(it looks better in real life- it looks a little flat on the computer)

progress report: fiber cement siding

a few days ago i wrote about the second type of siding that we are using on our house.  our artisan hardie board has been rearing to go and i have been so eager to see it go up and see the contrast with the barn wood.  the trim around all of the windows, and the edges of the house go up first so that the lapped siding can butt against it.  our trim details are very simple, i wanted to frame the house with the wide 5.5" trim all the way around, and we added a second 3.5" piece at the top of the walls on the gable ends and sides.  this creates a really awesome shadow line.

the pictures really tell the story so here they are!

this photo shows the sill that we created using the hardie trim

the edges of the house are trimmed with 5.5" planks and the bottom
trim is made up of a 5.5" piece with a 1.5" sill trim. 

the boys started putting up the siding and i am really loving those shadow lines!

the great room window wall has a lot of trim
which will emphasize all of that beautiful glass!

a cool view of the bottom trim

a close up of the siding

as you can see the standing seam roof is finished- more on that soon!

the hardie board is going up much faster than the barn wood so i should have more photos soon! now i just have to decide the exact color to paint this stuff!

another siding change up

if you recall from the rendering the stair "bump-out" as we so fondly call it was originally going to be clad in the same antique barn wood as the rest of the north house.  however, because of the change in plane björn and i thought it was a perfect opportunity to introduce a different material, one that is often found on the old minin buildings here in the south west.

rusted metal has been gaining in popularity as a siding option for a while.  this product is sometimes called cor-ten or corten steel, which refers to weathering steel, a group of steel alloys which were developed to eliminate the need for painting and forms a stable rust-like appearance when exposed to weather for several years.  (def. from wikipedia) 

you see it everywhere from new condo complexes, banks, schools, and of course homes.  you get rusted metal simply by letting non-galvanized steel face the elements and well...rust.  air, and moisture do the trick but a little help comes in the form of some kind of acidic liquid sprayed on the metal.  the best part about this material is that the rust is a good thing, in essence the thin rust layer forms a protective coating, and it also looks great with barn wood siding!

un-rusted steel- i give it a week to start looking a little rusty

a better view of the stair bump out
all of the windows are trimmed in barn wood

here are a few examples of rusted metal in use.  i hope to have our metal looking a little rustier soon.  i think a nice bath of hydrogen peroxide will work, rusting is after all just iron reacting to oxygen so something like hydrogen peroxide will make the reaction go crazy!  

i love the barn wood garage dor and the surfboard
(CCS Architecture via Houzz)

rusted metal looking very clean and contemporary
(Laidlaw Schultz Architects via Houzz)

a cool use for rusted metal- raised planters ( Exteriorscapes LLC via Houzz)

rusted metal roof looking fabulous with a weathered barn wood house
( Timothy F. White via Houzz)

products galore: siding purchased part dos

you know how every blogger always has "such and such part deux" well since we are here in southwest colorado i think "part dos" is much more appropriate.  we have a large population of americans who speak spanish as well as english.  new mexico is just a hop and a skip away and we are so lucky to have probably THE BEST traditional mexican food (outside of mexico) as well as influences from the Navajo and other native american tribes.  but i digress , this post is supposed to be about siding!

you saw our purchase of antique barn wood here, which we are soooo excited to show you.  but what about the rest of the house.  originally we had envisioned a vertical wood siding in a reverse board and batten application on the left side of the house, and a horizontal lap siding under the front porch.  again, we did a bunch of research into the available products.  we seriously considered using cedar siding for its weather resistant properties, however, i wasn't diggin' the idea that this product would still rot over time.  björn and i both wanted something that would be a lot less maintenance in the future.  after reading a few great articles on Fine Home Building we decided to check out fiber cement board.

hardie plank siding 5/16" thick

Hardie Board is a brand which has become synonymous with fiber cement board.  But what is it?  Fiber cement is a composite material made of sand, cement and cellulose fibers. This is formed into traditional sized siding boards, trim and panels and even to mimic the look of cedar shingles.  But unlike a wood product, Hardie board is rot resistant, is non-combustible, resists warping, cracking, hail and can withstand winds up to 150 mile per hour!  hardie board is available in some areas pre-painted however, in our area it is really only available in a primed finish, ready to paint any color you want.

what we really liked about Hardie board is its ease of installation, every piece is super straight and dimensional, unlike "real" wood and also we loved the low maintenance aspect of the product.  Because it is rot resistant we won't have to worry so much about water damage, snow or ice sitting against the house and it also does not become a host for wood eating insects! plus our favorite architect, hnj, uses it a lot on his house without eaves, and since we don't have eaves, we thought we should probably take a lesson or two from the master.  but that meant changing the look of the left side of the house from a vertical siding to a horizontal lap siding, we decided that we were okay with that, as long as the result was something classic with beautiful lines.

but....björn and i could not be satisfied with normal hardie plank, no.  we had to delve into the unknown. (that seems to be our thing).  instead of the traditional hardie plank which has been a staple for James Hardie we decided to purchase their Artisan line of fiber cement board, which of course was not readily available here in colorado.  we were told this was a product designed for the east coast market, that just made us want it more!  so after a little bit of hassle we were able to place our order for beautiful Artisan plank Hardie board.

alpine lumber delivering our artisan hardie board

you can really see how thick this product is

this product is 5/8" thick compared to 5/16" thickness of normal hardie plank, creating the look of traditional wood siding, with deep shadow lines.  kind of hard to explain, but the pictures tell the story!  and it sounds like we are going to be one of the only houses in all of colorado to have this product on the exterior of their house which is pretty interesting.  we are still planning on white painted under the front porch area and a colored paint on the left side of the house, something to balance the beautiful grey of the north side of the house.  can't wait to show you the progress!

artisan hardie board with beautiful deep shadow lines

all of the details using the artisan product are
reminiscent of traditional wood siding

for more on hardie board and artisan check out the site!

photos via james hardie & moi