dundas, Choosing brck and siding colour was very challenging for us too. I am not sure we got it right, but it might give you some ideas or help you see a red brick with a different siding colour. We chose Brampton Brick Crawford colour in small Queen size. We used a taupe (beige/greige colour) for the board and batten siding, with grey trim. The door is a fiberglass door stained to look like mahogany and there is real wood mahogany trim on the door (not fiberglass trim). Our house is not finished yet, but I have posted a picture where we used Photoshop to show the railing (imagine glass on the railing not mesh). The steps are stone steps and were not installed when picture was taken so we used Photoshop to show the steps too. Sorry, the picture is old, but it is the only one I have that shows what the railing will look like. Now, your brick has some yellow in it that our brick does not. So, I would not recommend the same colour siding as ours. You could do a beige, but not one that has hints of red undertones like ours does. Grey would also be a colour to explore. Best of luck deciding! You could also try looking at the Maibac website for ideas of different board and batten siding colours. Carol

I think she's talking about the green fish scale type trim rather than the roof shingles. Dark red is a really heavy,solid, down to earth color, so the light yellow looks a bit lightweight with it. I've always liked dark green with dark red or Oxblood brick, and oddly enough black works really well with it. Since true black is awfully heavy and awfully hot, you might try painting some of your trim, like that around the window, a deep charcoal, and maybe paint the porch rails a spanking white for contrast. The concrete porch could be painted some unobtrusive, generic, all-purpose color, like brown. Concrete absorbs paint really well if you etch it a bit first, and then you can seal it. I once saw a really neat porch on a Victorian type house. The guy had the Builder put a layer of wide boards over the concrete porch for a more authentic antique look. Your house is gorgeous, so have fun.

You're not going to to be able to stain those dark shakes a light color, or "wash off the old color." You could paint them, but that will take a lot of prep and priming, and cedar shakes are notorious for bleeding through paint and for causing rusting around any exposed fasteners which will also show through the paint. I think you have the following choices: 1. Learn to love the traditional look you have 2. Paint them, spending a lot of time on prep, and hope that you don't end up with appearance problems later 3. Remove them and start over

Hoping you are doing a railing at the top of the steps…. in that case i would treat the wood…to establish a permanent color and then have the door match that color …since you seem to have other accents in the area of the same material…i would treat them as well….