What Should Our 1922 Foursquare Look Like?

I drove up to our new/old house recently, and this is what I saw. The house had brown shingles - the original brown shingles. Is this what our house looked like 91 years ago? I tried to imagine it? Well, I think this is as close as we're going to get to seeing the original house but, alas, it only lasted a day or two.

Back when I posted about the siding being removed and about all the layers of construction, I mentioned that our contractor had informed us that we would not be able to restore or paint the original cedar shingle siding.  I had really hoped to paint the old shingles, I knew I did not want a dark brown house.

HGTV Dream Home exterior-NuCedar Shingles

So square one. Then I thought I would like to simulate the original shingles with a vinyl or pvc shingle product. We went down that road and the product that I really, really liked was pvc shingle by NuCedar Mills. It is gorgeous and it looks like the real thing. Unfortunately, it was prohibitively expensive.

House under construction at East Beach sided with Hardie Plank.

 

Contractor Chris recommended using a James Hardie Siding aka Hardie Plank. He said that wood siding would have been an authentic material in 1922 and Hardie Plank looks like wood but is even better than wood. Best of all, the price was in the ball park! Hardie Plank is made primarily of cement. It is great in all kinds of bad weather and it won't burn. It is what they are using to build the new houses at the East Beach neighborhood in Norfolk. Sounds good!

That decision was made and then came the question of color.  Hardie comes in about 20 colors or primed and ready to paint. The pre-painted version won't need to be painted for about 20 years. Painted it is! How did we decide on the color? I eliminated beige, white and cream right away. Our last two houses were beige - don't want the same thing. So, pretty much, our choices boiled down to green, yellow, blue or gray.

Red brick and cream stucco house right next door

So I surveyed the street.  There is a pretty green house diagonally across the intersection from us. There are a couple versions of cream and white nearby, another green and a few red brick.  Also a pretty gray diagonally behind us and a yellow house directly behind us. Blue it is!

James Hardie siding in Boothbay Blue

James Hardie only makes siding in one blue shade and it is barely blue.  Though it looks blue in photos, it is really more gray than blue called, Boothbay Blue. We hear new siding will begin to be applied to our house THIS WEEK!

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