If you are on a lake I'm guessing you have near by wooded areas. In that case I would be hard-pressed to use cedar in that case.

I had an issue on cedar trim and someone recommended a non nature color. Never tried it as we ended up selling so we just repaired the damage

Are you being foolish? Maybe. Depends on how you'd feel about dealing with a woodpecker problem should one develop. At the risk of being banned from this forum have you considered vinyl shake? The right ones look good but you have to get a quality product and preferably one with quality corners that look like true shake corners as opposed to using something like Azek corner boards. We'll be using vinyl shake in our gable ends and on our garage but also resided our previous home with them. Using a different brand this time around. Here's a pic of our old house. No, it's not the real thing but even close up, if your guests are just enjoying the bbq and not specifically trying to determine the material, they probably won't know. The low maintenance aspect quickly outweighed my snobby side especially when I'd see woodpeckers scale the house, test pecking here and there, then leave. The original wood was a woodpecker battle to say nothing of a maintenance nightmare.

Can't find any real close ups at the moment but this gives you an idea and you can see how the corners look.

My mom had cedar board and batten. Sounded like a construction zone when the woodpeckers were all out there. There were holes everywhere. She loved nature but even she conceded the woodpeckers were a hassle.

Have you looked into Nichiha Sierra Premium? I know you said no on fiber cement (do please tell why!) but that's what we are considering. Initially, we were going with cedar shakes but the overall maintenance for us was a big consideration--rot, warp, animals, etc. That, and we went to our local Street of Dreams and saw an entire house and carriage house, totaling over 8,000 sq ft, covered in the Sierra Premium and it looked really good. We had to get close and touch it before we realized the difference.

Over my second cup of Joe this morning DH asked me again what we are going to do about our siding as Steve (our builder) will want to know for the boathouse very soon. It's getting ugly here.

The house is definitely in the woods so whaas your experience doesn't sound good for my side.

DLM...your vinyl siding looks good. I had not considered vinyl. I might. I really don't want fiber cement. What brand of vinyl are you going to use on the new house.??

jn3344....oh no...that doesn't sound good. May I ask what part of the country your mom's house is located in and if it was rural or in town?

thanks all.

Thanks Jaime...I have looked into the Nichiha. Lots of great reviews and lots of posters here have used it in the past. Still haven't ruled it out. But there are no local dealers here and the installation issues.....for novices, then warranty issues if they arise. Just didn't want to deal with it again.

problems with different house, different brand (would rather not rehash too much). Boards replaced under warranty, labor on our dime, older siding didn't match new boards, so we spent 7k to re-paint. They provided a few cans of paint. Yada, yada, yada.

just left a bad taste in my mouth. I know cedar isn't maintenance free either.

that picture is beautiful. It's tempting.

NE Ohio. Between large cities but a little out of the way.

That siding on our old house (Cedarway) was put up summer of '08 and the picture of the whole house was taken fall of '14 - no difference in look or color and we never did a thing to it other than use one of those cobweb remover things. That company is out of business so after doing a lot of research and getting large samples sent from several companies, including corner pieces, Novik was clearly superior. Haven't started the install yet but could be next week - I'll get pics. Their website is not the greatest and their faux stone is truly awful so try and look past that! They have a huge range of colors, weathered hues and stained looks - far better than any other company I've seen. Whatever you do stay away from Foundry - the stuff is almost paper thin.

My neighbor decided to put cedar shingles up on the parts of her house that aren't painted brick, and for the roof. Total disaster! It looks hideous! Instead of turning that lovely gray that cedar does on the New England seacoast, it's black, rotting, nasty looking. I think one needs salt air to achieve the gray, but this summer, while on Martha's Vineyard, I noticed that much of the newer shingling is going dark and rotted looking, instead of gray. I can't help but wonder if the quality of cedar is not what it once was. I LOVE the look in NE, but it just doesn't work in the midwest. BTW, I'm in KY - hot and lot and lots of humidity (and woodpeckers, who destroyed the wood siding on a neighbor's house).

I see nice weathered gray roofs in a lot of upper end subdivisions here in SE WI.

Rarely do I see black ones unless you have many trees in the vicinity.

I've seen woodpeckers and chipmunks do literally tens of thousands of dollars in damage to cedar-sided homes in the midwest in a very short amount of time. Not only do they damage the cedar, but sometimes the underlying substrates as well, meaning huge replacement costs and nightmares to fix the structure. Don't do it.

I have never seen a sign of woodpecker damage in New England although I may have heard one knocking but I'm not sure. On the other hand, there is an eagle's eyrie near our vacation house in Maine which has had Cabot's bleaching oil on white cedar shingles for the past 17 years with no maintenance, discoloration or rot.

Thank you for the feedback and advice on this. I apologize for taking so long to get back to this thread. I respect your opinions and will definitely consider all!!