Thanks, Mongo. I believe it is actually some sort of cement (cement-like?) sheet product for the exterior of houses. On one side it's pretty smooth and then the other side has a bit of a swirrly texture (kinda decorative, I suppose....) It's like a Stucco replacement..and used, I think, on the sides of houses, or new additions. It's in huge sheets, VERY hard, and about 5/16th inch thick..... When I said "siding" I don't mean siding..per say. :-) Like....fake stucco cement board. That's what I meant. It's definitely a grey color, cementish.....I don't think there's any company names on it. It's in the garage and VERY HEAVY... Still think it's ok to use? Basically, my husband will cut it to shape, etc., and go through 1,0000000 saw blades I'm sure. :-) Then we'll lay it right on the subfloor (pier and beam house, with 2/4 wood slats in bathroom with 1/4 inch of pace between the boards, i.e. air coming up from under the house. Should we put anything (goop/glue/thinset) BELOW the cement backerboard item? We will put it right on top of it,.,,then put the tile on. We are hiring a tiler...so just have to have some place for him to put the tile! :-) We live in Texas. Thanks again. Any other advice? Cautions!???? :-)

We went this route after having done stucco on another part of the house. A lot faster, cheaper for labor, and I trust it just a little more. We did have to give some to the look of the project, but when we hired the carpenters, everything ended up going faster than we expected. With that the case, we said go ahead with the hardipanels and let's just finish it instead of finding more people to do the stucco work. We're done with the project, which is a huge relief for us. We're also pretty pleased with the results. A slight seam here and there (expect for the big horizontal one) isn't hurting anyone. True, our project wasn't exactly traditional. I think a small part of me wishes we had held off for all stucco. Only a very small part.... http://www.draftymanor.com/house/ links to all the house projects. Here is a link that might be useful: Final pictures

I will hand draw the rough floor plans and elevations so that I will not violate the contract. It will take a while and might not be to the exact true scale of it, but hopefully is close enough. I love the floor plan, it was made with a lot of our feedbacks, but hate the curves put in the master bathroom - seems pointless and expensive. I deeply dislike the exterior and interior detailing (not just cost matter, I feel it was pushed on us against our interests), and I also am feeling very unsure about our roof line and gables (can it be simpler or fewer? does it matter to reduce cost?). I am annoyed that we have to spend almost 30K on a fake chimney. We don't want to trigger structural review if possible (6 months delay + 20K structural eng fees), but given how bad I feel about it, we are discussing that maybe it is not too bad if we delay the project for a year while trying to fix the design issues and looking at the housing market for alternatives. And who knows, if we are ok with triggering structural review, the additional saving could be substantial that we care less about the 20K structural redesigning fees. We started the design process years ago when we were of more limited means. Ours is a building designer, not an architect. cpartist, I do think the yellow house look like a farm house. Our started out as a Tudor, and we keep most of it when the city wanted craftsman instead. I think it only look like a forced G&G, and the only thing that might fool some people into thinking it's G&G is the brick/rock work and excessive detailing. But then again, reasonable G&G homes I look at have much quieter exterior. The house on the left of our lot is "supposedly" a craftsman, but doesn't look like it at all. I think the city wants the craftsman "flavor". We are not purist, I don't mind some modifications to craftsman, but don't want a loud expensive exterior and interior. Thanks to the veteran architects in this thread, I am learning a lot from you.

We are in the process of siding our addition with Hardie board, and my advice is to get very specific information for your estimate. - Hardie board comes in several pre-painted colors - saves a lot of time if you like the color. - Hardie also comes in different widths and finishes; make sure you know what you like and want. If you go to a professional building supplier (not HD or Lowes), they should have sample boards that show all finishes and colors. The store we went to was called the Roofing Center, but they also sold and displayed siding. - In the picture in the above post you see vertical trim boards on the ends and trim around windows - are they going to be Hardie also? We are using man-made trim boards from Boral, since my contractor found them much easier to work with. - Does the contractor have experience with installing Hardie board? As already mentioned, nail gun pressure and type of nails is important. You also need to ensure they are going to flash the seams between boards in a long run (recommended now by Hardie), paint/seal exposed cut edges that face up (you can get matched paint at HD), and caulk the seams where it comes up against the trim. All of these things are designed to make the siding last longer. Bruce