We finally did it! After living in our home for 5 1/2 years we were able to get our siding done. Read along for all the details on the process, the siding we chose, installation, and price!
The Process
When we first moved in, in 2017 it seemed like the exterior of the house had a fresh coat of paint. The entire house was painted an odd beige color, including the gutters 🙄. We thought about hiring a company to paint but unfortunately, a lot of the cedar shakes were in pretty bad condition, so scraping the paint would damage them even more. A bunch of the shakes would had to be replaced too, which would have cost us a lot more money.
Over the next 5 years we decided to hold off on new siding to save money and really decide what direction we wanted to go in. Were we going to do cedar shakes? Vinyl? Board & batten? There were so many options and I’m glad we took our time deciding.
While we waited for the right time to finish our siding, we worked on a few projects inside. We painted the interior, refinished our radiators, updated the electrical, and insulated.
As we watched more and more paint chip off the house, it was finally time to start getting quotes. We started looking for quotes earlier this year and did not find much luck. Some no shows, and the people that did show up wouldn’t get back to us.
We didn’t get the three quotes we usually like to get for a project but we finally sat down with someone from Marshall Building & Remodeling, a local company that work in Rhode Island and Southern Massachusetts.
They were at the top of our budget but we took a leap and agreed to have them do our siding.
The Siding We Chose
We went through several ideas, clapboard, board and batten on the front, wood cedar shakes (until we found out the price 😬), vinyl shakes etc.
Ideally, I wanted to keep the cedar shake look. I wanted our home to look like it did when it was first built in 1921, unpainted cedar shakes. As I was doing research I ran into Certainteed and fell in love! They have a vinyl cedar shake that looks so much like wood!
This was perfect! I can get the look of cedar shakes and the vinyl meant less maintenance. No need to paint every few weeks.
We already had vinyl up when we redid our porch and so we went ahead and chose Certainteed cedar impressions in the color Cedar blend, and chose a date in October to start the project.
Unfortunately, a few days later we got some bad news. We were told there were distribution issues in the way that the siding was coming out. The variations weren’t what they had hoped for. So back to the drawing board we went.
After going through a couple of samples we found a different option. We decided on the sample below and placed it up against the house for the summer and two weeks before the project started we got cold feet!
I lost sleep over the fact that I wasn’t sure if this siding was right for us and our home. I felt like the house was just going to look brown. There wasn’t enough variation and ultimately the look wasn’t what we originally wanted.
I can’t even begin to tell you guys how great the company has been! They were very accommodating and worked with us to find something similar. They introduced us to Tando Beach House Shake and it was the look we wanted! We went with the color Sandcastle.
Vinyl cedar shakes (cedar impressions) have come a long way. It looks just like wood!
Installation
Siding materials and a large dumpster were delivered and dropped off on the driveway on a Wednesday, by Friday afternoon a small crew had arrived and got right to work. They started with removing our old gutters and some of the siding. Saturday morning a bigger crew arrived and by the end of the day most of the siding was removed and they had wrapped the house for the new siding.
It’s incredible how fast they worked. They arrived bright and early between 7:30am and 8am and got right to work everyday. The crew were fantastic and if we ran into any issues (luckily they’re weren’t many) they found the solution for us right away!
It was so exciting to see the new siding go up! The vinyl cedar shake looks amazing!
We removed the siding before installing the new one on our house, but to save money, we just covered the original siding on the garage.
There was some rotting around the edge of the garage, right underneath the gutters and that was all replaced.
By the following Friday all the work was done! There were only a couple of things that needed tweaking or changed and that was done the following week. So in one week the entire exterior of our house, except for our porch which we renovated in 2018, was all brand new!
Price
When we first received a quote from the company I was a little shocked! I know prices have gone up lately but this is a huge investment. They’re expensive! However, after our experience you get what you pay for.
Not only did we pay for new gutters, siding, and trim, we paid for professionals to work on our home. A knowledgeable crew that were very efficient and very accommodating company. We didn’t have to worry about anything which was so nice, especially after dealing with some not so fun contractors 🙄.
The company understood and listened to my design ideas and executed them nicely. We ended up paying $70,000. I know thats a lot of money, our biggest project to date, but looking at the gorgeous vinyl cedar shakes, our experience and the warranty we have from the company, I would do it again in no time!
Before & After
This is what the house looked like when we purchased it in 2017.
Here it is after we redid the porch in 2018.
And here it is now with the new vinyl cedar shake!
We also painted the front door Simply White by Benjamin Moore. I thought about doing a light blue/green but didn’t want the house to look like a beach house (we’re near a golf course, not water).
The porch looks soooo good now!
We purchased new lights on Amazon to complete the look.
The details are just 🤩
I’m so in love with how it turned out! Up next, we’ll do some minor repairs and paint the foundation (maybe a nice light paint) then we’ll do landscaping in the Spring and it’ll look even better!
Follow along on Instagram! I’ll be dressing her up for Christmas soon!
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