For us, keeping paint on our 100yo cedar siding has been a real headache. However, you're talking to old wood fanatics here (me included) who consider it worthwhile - on a historic house, having the original wood is worth it. Your house is not historic (based on date and I think I remember other threads about it). So I don't know if you would have an authenticity issue with the wood. For me, one issue would be ease of colour changing. I remember your brick, so colour will be tricky. You might like to change it (all) sometime, and vinyl does not invite painting. If you did want to cover the wood, I'd go with metal rather than vinyl myself. Vinyl just seems like a very inferior material, whereas metal siding is getting quite cool these days - lots of new options out there. In fact, that may be a solution for your brick too. Whole house covered in metal? Or Hardiplank? That way if in 100 years a fanatic buys your house, the original brick is retrievable :-) Karin L

We used Sikkens Cetol SRD on our red cedar shingles and it's working nicely after 2 years. I don't think it needs to be stripped if it's a translucent stain. Pretty sure you just put another coat over it in a few years. The Sikkens wbsite says it's suitable for shingles: http://www.nam.sikkens.com/product.cfm?product_id=4&product_category=exterior My view on costs is that most of the work is labor (perhaps yours?), and you're better off going with a product that you trust will work. My dad used Cabot on red cedar siding (tongue in groove) and that worked well too, but it wasn't timber oil, just whatever their semi-transparent stain was, but that was 20 years ago, so I'm sure the formula has changed.

It's really easy TIA. Keep those damm purple birds away !!! Install a Yellow plastic Owl up high on a stick. Frank Zappa did this around his Cabin worked great for Him. He told me about it at the Filmore West during a break. The Dude even did a song about it. I got the purple bird blues from my head to my shoes They shittt on my deck all day long they even do it when I snoozze. I dident put the finish on cause I had to wait, now I got the thing looking like a broken grease Crate Yaaaaaaaaaaaaa I got the purple bird Bluessssssssss Major Hit in the 60s JonMon Total yucking it up

I wanted to select a light stain like the shutters below, but they don't exactly work with your brick, so I selected a stain light than your current one with white trim.