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Last non-kitchen question, promise: siding - smooth or textured?

14 years ago

I'm sorry to keep posting these questions over here; but I think the kitchen forum participants are likely very in the know in regards to other aspects of home building and improvement, and I'm addicted to the instant gratification on this forum; the others don't have nearly the response rate! :) So please indulge me once more and let me know your thoughts on smooth vs textured composite siding for colonial/cape cod/farmhousey house in the woods. Overall looks more southern/colonial with round from columns (even though in Ohio) I'm torn. I like the smooth because I'm not much for fake woody grooves, but it might look better in the setting and among other homes in the neighborhood with textured and cedar siding. This will be painted white. Again, thank you, and I'll get back on my kitchen once these pressing issues are resolved. :)

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Comments (4)

plllog
14 years ago
I come from the stucco side of the country, but I've been to Ohio many times. What I've seen there is that whatever neighborhood I've been in, while the structures have varying shapes, the style is pretty uniform. If that is true where you are, that all of the houses surrounding yours have similar styles to yours and the same kind of siding, then it would be wise to "fit in" unless you're doing something radical like putting a craftsman amongst Federal.
cocontom
14 years ago
We have probably 30-40 year old textured steel siding. It's mostly in great condition, but a few pieces here and there could be replaced. The value of the house has dropped so much that we really don't want to replace all of the siding (the house a few doors down has been for sale for a year, and they're now asking half of our 10 year old traditional 30 year mortgage- the floor plans are identical, and that house is not a fixer-upper), but unfortunately, they don't make it any more. We haven't decided what to do yet.

My vote is to go with the flat- because you will always be able to replace individual pieces of that.
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Ah! But Christine!! If one is using one's range hood (not OTR) as one is supposed to be when any cooking takes place, you will NOT have any grease, oil, etc on one's textured walls. In my area, EVERYTHING is textured. Orange peel is what it's called around here. I've always had it and didnt have to scrub down my textured walls or ceilings anywhere except the soffit right above my crappy old all-in-one range/OTR combo unit in the old kitchen because the hood part was crappy and only covered part of the front burners. Hate OTRs. Semi-gloss paint on orange peel wasn't tough to scrub. In my new kitchen, no icky walls or scrubbing necessary after 14 months. My range hood is doing its job. In the hall bath where none of the three ceiling fans we've tried has been able to handle the steam and condensation of even a semi-regular hot shower, ceiling and walls must be scrubbed down regularly. Interesting that texture or the lack thereof is regional. Houses in my region were all built with orange peel and popcorn ceilings. One of the projects we tackled first after purchase was scrapping all the ceilings in the house. That stuff is nasty, both to live with and to remove.
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I'm not sure if the OP is reading this anymore, but I did want to offer advice. I've been scraping (and scraping and scraping, you get the idea) wallpaper for so long. We're in the process of redoing my daughter's room and there were many many layers of wallpaper on the walls. I assumed the layers started in the 1930's, but on one wall, they put sheetrock over the plasterwall. It's some bizarre cardboard-like substance, so I guess in the 1950's- late 60's they just redecorated a lot. Anyway, long story shortened, when I got to the last layer on that cardbaord wall, it's stuck like glue over it. I got off all I could, scrubbed it, and my husband put a layer of plaster over the whole thing and it's now smooth as glass. I don't think this would work with many many layers, but my father in law has done this in the past, and after 20 years all is still good. I wouldn't recommend doing this in the more public areas of the home, but in the bedrooms it might work for you. It sounds like from your post that you are a thoughtful remodeler. I, like so many on this forum, cringe when thinking of "flippers" and the lack of care for history that many have. However, there are people who remodel who do a great job and do it not only to make money, but to improve their community. Those people are to be commended, because their vision helps create a longer history for that house in that community. I hope that you are able to bring that home to its former glory and find a family to love it.
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fori and scpalmetto, I disagree entirely. My floor tile is a breeze to keep clean! The slight indentations are not there to prevent slipping, they are there to mimic natural stone and there are only a few of them here and there. The tile is quite smooth feeling, not rough at all ... it feels more like a honed stone. I've never used anything besides water to wash it and everything just wipes right off it easily. I did definitely see a lot of floor tiles out there that had a rough or textured surface and I could surely see that they would be a nightmare to clean. In fact, I couldn't imagine using some of them indoors because it looked like hosing them off would be the only way to "mop" them. But not all non-slippery tiles are like that.
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a2gemini, my utensil drawers are 36" wide, but the inside drawer dimension is actually 31". Those bins look good! I do agree about the odd sizing. I had to buy a few of each size and lay them out to see how they would fit. Looks like you managed to almost completely fill the drawer. You do lose just a little more space due to the thickness of two adjacent bin walls, but I like the way they look and the ability to clean them up. For me, the key was to group like items in each bin. So for example your two small bins right in the middle with measuring spoons could all be in one slightly larger bin, if such a bin exists. I would even combine them with the measuring cups directly above them. One 6x12 bin would probably hold all your measuring utensils perfectly as it did in mine. But, you have to go with what fits in your drawers. I found that fewer of the big bins wasted less space that a whole bunch of the smaller ones and the organization didn't suffer at all.
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neesie
14 years ago
You do realize, don't you, that you can't tell if siding is flat or textured unless you're directly a few inches in front of it? And focusing your eyes on it, of course! I wouldn't consider the texured option. Seems like the "flat" would be easier to keep clean also.
robin5mi
14 years ago
I just finished hanging about 200 sticks of textured HardiPlank lap siding. However much I'd have preferred the smooth look, I've got to say that the texture aspect saved my bacon many times since it hides imperfections quite well. Also, the pre-primed (ColorPlus) flavor of all the Hardi stuff is really good; great color accuracy and great adhesion; and a great time saver (at only a ~30% upcharge in materials).

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