You'll save initially buying pre-finished siding, but it will cost in the long run. Proper installs require caulking that will need touched up with pre-finished along with the bumps and bruises that happen with shipping/delivery, installers, and other various trades. Touching up areas and trying to match it all up are difficult at best. Imo, it's cleaner and more reliable to have an on site finish applied by reputable painters.

Before the GardenWeb gets around to pulling my plug I thought I would point out that one of the greatest, if not the only, benefit of using an Eagle Window is the fact that they will put a different color sash in their aluminum clad window frames as I referenced in my earlier post that was thought to be rude. A black sash can sometimes be an excellent choice in a gray or off-white frame because it gives the windows a more dramatic, deeper, and larger appearance. It was commonly used in older houses and has worked well for me in several historic restorations. But without seeing the rest of the trim colors and materials and the general setting of the house, it would be inappropriate to recommend anything that specific. Making the entire window sash and frame black can be too strong IMHO since subtlety is an important issue in any huse although it can work when the windows are inset in brick openings with no trim. Whatever is decided it should be accurately drawn to scale in color or mocked up. Making the windows all white seems a waste of a design opportunity unless the style of the house demands it (Georgian, etc). But if you like the Craftsman Style you really shouldn't be thinking about white windows or even clapboard siding for that matter. Pick a theme and try to reinforce it with the appropriate materials. There is a reason the Craftsman houses used shingles and earth colors; it was part of a cultural movement protesting the industrial revolution, not just a fashion or a "style". mdev, you apparently thought I was speaking to you about your window color comments but you should not have. I try to only speak to the OP in a thread and often don't read the other posts very thoroughly since I'm working in my office and often don't even see a recent post because it can take me an hour or two to post if a client calls or if I go to lunch. I can't do this full time. If I had something to say to you, I would normally have used your name. Others appear to have understood that and I only just figured out what you had assumed. I believe that responding to other posters comments rarely helps the OP and it often hijacks the thread which is truly a rude thing to do. The original post should always take precedence or AH would just become another chat room like the garden and kitchen forums. People come to BAH for real answers. The late Ben Thompson often told us to never design in a vacuum. It actually took me some time to understand what he meant: never focus on one design element to the exclusion of the others. The first thing you consider when selecting anything is how it will reinforce the central idea or design motif (called a "parti" in design school and you had to have one you could defend or your presentation was over). Only then should you consider the other aspects of the design. (You can learn a bit of this from the "What Not To Wear" TV show.) Focusing on the big ideas first instead of your old favorite ideas actually makes designing easier as well as more powerful. Toward the end things just seem to fall into place. The choice of a window color should fit into the larger "parti" and if you haven't defined that yet or can't describe it to others you can't move forward and get effective help from others. In other words, your're stuck. Know that feeling? It took me 4 years as an engineering and art student in college, 3 1/2 years in graduate school (interrupted by the war) and 10 years in an office to figure how a design process worked. I offer it to you in a 10 minute tutorial for free. Whether you understand it or not, you can't say I didn't try. The photo below is of a Cambridge, MA house restoration finished last year. On a lark I applied to do a another Cambridge house advertised on Craigslist with just my resume and this photo and beat out 250 other architectural proposals from all over New England. What many years of experience teaches you is proportion and balance. I don't know how to teach that in 10 minutes but learning to design a Palladian window would an excellent place to start.

I think you have to pick the color from your stone. There is such variation in stone colors that that should come first. I'm not so much of a fan of the dark brown in the picture you posted....rather than 'pop' as you say, I think it distracts from what could be a much richer looking color scheme as it is too much contrast. If you darkened the wall color I think it would look better. Or if you lightened the accents so it blends better. Go to houzz.com and look at stone exteriors for some ideas. [Traditional Exterior design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-exterior-home-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_736~s_2107) by Other Metros Design-build Witt Construction [Traditional Exterior design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-exterior-home-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_736~s_2107) by Cincinnati Architect Richard Taylor Architects [Traditional Exterior design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-exterior-home-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_736~s_2107) by Minneapolis General Contractor Stonewood, LLC

In New England it is very rare to see a house without shutters, and they are never the functional kind... so it's ingrained in my brain that a house doesn't look right without narrow/non-functional shutters. Keep in mind that this is FULL shade. The previous owners spend a considerable amount of money having professional landscapers select all the foundation plants. Some of them have grown out of scale now, but it's not an easy task to find colorful, full shade, evergreen foundation plants in zone 6 that can take pruning also. It would be hard to replicate the show these plants put on in the spring. On the other side of the porch I have added a "Red Dragon" weeping Japanese maple that should add some color as well. I think the observation that those tall yews to the left distract from the front door and don't do anything to hide the foundation is a fair point though, and may replace with something like Gold Dust Aucuba for foundation hiding and some color, even in full shade.