Here's my house with the Hardi-plank installed vertically...

{{gwi:80014}}

I don't know where you are, but there have been problems with prepainted Hardie Plank, especially in snow country. You can always used the primed stuff and paint it any color your want.

Kudzu9, I'm curious about the mesh encapsulated rock wall. Is it going to be covered with something?

Pacific Northwest Killer Rocks must be restrained by state law.

Personally, I would never paint anything brown, tan or olive drab. Nothing against the military but I've moved on.

creek_side-
Actually, that's a couple-year-old picture from when we first moved in. The rock walls are on three sides of the house, and people either like them or hate them. I like them, and they now have vines, grapes, and espaliered fruit trees growing on them. They also provide a lot of privacy as they're 6' tall.

Here is a more recent shot from the outside:

...and the inside:

I wondered about vines growing over them. I think they will be very attractive once the greenery takes over.

yes it would be the prepainted that is going up around here and we are snow country hen winter hits. that is the first i have heard about issues but would surely like to know before we even go that route.

I like the med brown stucco with dark brown window frames but agree i do not want drab browns.. but nor do i want the blues and yellows and purple-ish stucco colors either, hardy plank does not seem to have many prepainted choices and painting it seems like so much more work.

Here is ours in JH Autumn Tan. We love it.

{{gwi:1509890}}

Forgot to mention we live in Wisconsin and have heavy winters. We bought the James Hardie Hardiezone in Autumn Tan. It's made for our climate zone. So far so good but it was just installed in August.

Just started a new thread with pics of timberbark hardi- somehow I missed this one when trying to respond.

i am almost certain that we are going with the pre painted timberbark- a much darker brown than the autumn tan shown here but that looks great too!

If pre-painted hardi can survive Wisconsin winters than NJ should be fine. The houses that I looked at in our area to see the color were all less than 5 years old though so it is tough to know if it will stand the test of time but I agree that painting seems like a lot of work!

Do a search on delaminated Hardie Plank before you take the plunge.

Not wanting to sound like the Nichiha poster child, but if JH prepainted makes you uneasy (it did me after reading the stories... and we're not even in snow country), you might want to take a look at Nichiha fiber cement. They make a smooth board much like JH. Many pictures here if you want to so a search on Nichiha.

We installed our Nichiha two years ago in the drab brown color macv mentions (we're military and obviously haven't moved on....) and have been very happy with our choice. Good luck!