Most road noise is actually from the air trying to get out from between the tires and the road as the wheels turn so a busy road will always be noisy despite the technology used so long as rubber tires are involved. Besides, buses are just as likely to switch to biodiesel as they are to compressed natural gas or hybrids. My concerns with a busy road would be where guests would park. If the front yard is large enough to accommodate a circular driveway with parking spaces than that may not be an issue but you do need to ask yourself if your visitors will have to park a street over and walk to your home. A busy road may be an advantage if you want to hang out a shingle and work out of your home so it's difficult to say one way or the other. However, if it was me, I would go with the quieter street and smaller home, location is everything and if your kids are already old enough that busy streets aren't a safety issue then it won't be very many years till they will be moving out. Basements can be renovated very inexpensively with little more than a circular saw, a staple gun , hammer and nails.

I did not think Marvin or Anderson had an ebony or dark bronze interior fiberglass option? I also do not think they have had "continual problems" for ~20 years but it appears as if it was enough of a problem to employ at least one chain painting business in the matter of repairing failed window coatings for approximately 8 years. I guess what I am trying to say is that I don't know that I feel comfortable with a coated product where the product has a history of appreciable coating failure, or I would at least feel more comfortable if Marvin owned it and identified to the public exactly what happened and how it was remedied, rather than having us all rely on speculation because I have not seen any official information on the cause of the failures, but it certainly is contradictory to what the product brochures would have us believe!

I have thought about sun fade. I figure that is a risk. I can always change my mind later (something I am really good at...). The people that had the house before used paint on the cedar, so I can't re-stain it. They actually ruined all the cedar and it would cost a fortune to replace. I am basically trying to band-aid it. It's so ugly to me and have lived with it for 10 years and am fed up with it.I figure if I want to go to a lighter color, it would be easier with a dark blue than a red. If I wanted to go a lighter blue later, it would be an easier transition color-wise. I just don't want a purple house. :) Our house has a steel standing seam roof. It is the basic galvalume color. My husband was in the steel building business for years. So he knows what kind of steel to use and not use down here. Our roof looks like new still. I was planning on putting some fruit trees on the west side of the house where there is no shrubbery. That would help cut down the sun beating up that side of the house. My house is on 60 acres. Our neighbors aren't close. So I don't have to worry about that. haha. Found some old pictures of the house when we first bought it to give you an idea.

A barn/slide door for that opening isn't practical. Unless you need to be able to lock the door, you could use full length café/saloon doors with a window -- the kind that are often used in restaurants between kitchen and dining. They're NOT just for saloons or restaurants and they'd "hide" the view behind the door w/o being in the way. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/385972630544218352/ You could also consider less than full length café/saloon doors.