Are those cultured stone? They look good enough to not hit my faux stone button. :) There may be a stigma associated with fake stone, but not the veneer stuff that is real stone. I'm a brick person, I'm a stone person. And there is certainly ugly brick out there. Yours might not be as nice in person as it looks in the photo but from here it looks like the good stuff, well laid out, in nice colors. A deep foresty or blackish green trim might blend the brick with roof colors, especially if you go with a darker grey. Some roof colors are off-limits in some climates of course... Brick is good with your house because it's such a classic style, the horizontal brick contrasting with the pointy gothic peak. It's just a very pleasing pattern, and if you do stone, I'd prefer it in your first two styles. But really, even they are almost too natural and unstructured. They'd be okay, but I personally would direct my efforts at something else. Okay, cuz I like it. But we really need a wide shot from the street that shows more of the front of the house I think! As far as I know, you have a stone garage or pagoda wing or something. That might change my feelings about the brick. When I was trying to pick out a trim color for a brick/stucco/wood trim house, I sort of enjoyed looking at the "historically appropriate" colors from the local historic commission.

You have a hip roof, not flat at all, and enough shows of the roof so that the color will need to coordinate with the trim and garage door. Keep the exterior simple. Your trim can blend into the roof or, if you prefer, it can be lighter or darker to accentuate the trim placement along the roof line. The garage door should not be accented at all, but blend into the house siding. The front door can be your accent color so the focal point will be on your front door and not the garage door. I agree that green wouldn't really be a good selection with your color brick. How do you feel about the pick brick?

Hello. We are using LP Smartside. Diamond Kote is painting ours a custom color. I didn't like their standard white (too bright!) and chose White Dove for our siding. We ordered it the end of November and are expecting it any day now. I did not find it cost prohibitive to do the custom color. BTW, you can do any color you want. Our local lumbar yard sent my paint chip to Diamond Kote, they made a sample (approx 5x8") and sent it back to me. I now carry that sample with me almost everywhere - it sort've lives in my purse :)

The stone is definitely not the problem. Easiest and quickest "fix" is to paint the trim (except around garage doors) something close to the darkest color (?medium/dark gray?) from within the stone -- but paint the garage doors and trim the same color as the siding. If the siding actually doesn't need to be repainted now, then don't; however, if the siding does need to be repainted, choose a lighter shade of gray (or another color from within the stone) for all the siding and for the garage doors and garage door trim and a slightly darker shade of the same color for all the other trim. The best, "fix" for the style of the house without a major overhaul of the house itself -- not a practical idea for a winter project -- would be to create a ground floor level entry centered where the current steps/stoop is located -- perhaps extending all the way to the back of the house -- and then put your steps to go up into your home over the garage within that new entry. create a porch in front with its ceiling at the upstairs floor level beginning at the new entry and in front of it alongside the garage to just beyond the front of the garage so you can have that porch roof turn at a right angle (hip corner) to build a shelter -- roof overhang -- over the garage doors. No need for posts in front of the garage if you build just an overhang with supports attached beside and in between the garage doors beneath the roof/overhang. You might consider "enlarging" the upstairs windows over the garage -- if not by actually enlarging the windows, then by creating a frame the same height around the real window and a faux window beneath it.