Building A House: Exterior Stone and Siding

Catch up on the #hometodiein house building adventure!
Going to Build,
 Footings/ Stained Glass part 1,
Foundation,
Framing Part 1
Framing Part 2

Last summer we started building our home. 

Here's the info on the choices we made for the exterior.

Well, my husband Rhett was actually in charge of the exterior choices.

Our goal was kind of a rustic cottage feel.

Since our architecture was somewhat craftsman with the big gable, we decided to use siding for the majority of the home.

Rhett also wanted to use rock on the facade of the house.

WINDOWS

To add some character and kind of a older home feel, we went with grid-paneled windows.

The round attic window is just a 42" diameter plain window.

SIDING

When Rhett was researching products and colors, I just gave him a few colors I didn't want.

Basically, I really wanted the siding to be a color that wasn't in the neutral/ tan/ brown arena.

We live in the desert that is already brown and barren and I wanted our house to not blend in with the blah.

Rhett's favorite color is black, so I wasn't surprised when he picked the black color swatch.

CEMENT SIDING: 

Hardie Board  color plus 8" lap siding planks in Iron Gray

Gable: Staggered Edge Shingle also in Iron Gray

Trim: Hardie Planks in Arctic White

We went with the factory processed colored cement siding because the color warranty is for 15 years.  Hopefully the color will last longer than that before we need to paint.

 The Iron Gray color has a hint of blue, so I think depending on the time of day it looks dark gray or navy blue.  I ended up really liking the dark gray Rhett picked.  It was different, but not too wild.  I can't remember what he wanted to use as the color for trim, but I did insist on white.  He was worried it would be too much of a shocking contrast with near-black and bright white trim, but I finally told him to trust me and I'm glad I pushed for the white.

This is the back of the house.  There's the basement walk out patio, and the back deck above that.

On top are the huge holes for attic windows.

ROCK FACADE

With rock it seemed much more cost effective to go with local distributors, and Rhett picked out a local company that manufactures faux rock.

It was more affordable than real stone and saved us on the labor install as well.  You also don't have to pour a concrete stone ledge in your foundation to support it like real rock requires.

Harristone Uintah ledgestone.  color: Cape Cod

Rhett chose the darkest color scheme that was more gray than brown.

We chose the installers to use the drystack method, where the rocks all touch with no grout.

For our bids, the prices were pretty much the same between drystack or the regular spaces and fill in with grout.

I guess the drystack is more annoying to install, as they had to have more cuts and notch out rocks for a tight fit, but then they were done and didn't have to come back and grout anything.

For the style of rock Rhett chose, we liked the horizontal rocks to not have grout spaces.

The crew that installed the rock was really fast and did most at night.

To meet code in our area, they had to caulk all their staple holes, which is what the white dots are on the unfinished areas.

We have a funky front door, and I was really nervous about the rock going around a 5' circle, but they did so great.  The rock was pretty much perfect around the curves.

So that is the exterior.

This was a nice phase because we hired the roofing, siding, and rock out so we just sat back and watched it go up.