Lwehling, can you post pics? If you've read many forum posts - you'll understand that as helpful as everyone wants to be, pictures speak a thousand words. A visual will help you to get great suggestions from forum members. Also... We just like to see other people's old houses. We're "peekers"... It goes with old house ownership. (We love them all.). :-)

It's a tough choice for you because when looking back, it looks like the wood under your siding was taken off- I've never heard of that before, I wonder why on earth anyone would do that? Some homeowners make really strange choices. With that in mind, I honestly don't know what I'd do in your position. Doing wood is the right thing to do, but you are right, that would be very expensive. Part of the choice is finding out what is under there- is your home really drafty? You can put in more insulation when doing this project, which you might want to budget for. With colors, I'd suggest looking into Roger Moss's books. Many have been out of print for some time, but you could find them at the library. My friend who is a historic preservationist recommended his books to me when thinking of color- she specifically mentioned "Century of Color". Fantastic books that really help you think of color and placement. I'm not sure what colors we are going to choose, most of the homes on our block are white, as is our house currently, but it just so happens that the house on one side is a yellow-cream color with dark brown trim, and the house on the other side is a deep green-brown color with cream trim and a red door. Fitting a color scheme into those in a way that doesn't look too much like one or another is tough. I have several preservation colors that I'm looking at, but after exhausting many of them, we might fall off the preservation wagon and do slightly different colors in order to have them fit into our block. If we make a definite decision, I'll post it!

Thanks--definitely got good info, I know. Guess I'm just down to the wire and can't find exactly what I want to model it after. T-minus one week to having to order paint. :( Internet research, toured several historic neighborhoods in the area, checked the library, and even tried to work the virtual house painter thing on the Benjamin Moore website and still not 100% sure. Thought I was sold on light yellow for clapboards, dark green for shutters and white for bandboards, scalloping and trim, but then I worry that yellow might be too "cute" for a big house. Oh well...I'm just not great with color--takes me forever to paint interior rooms and this is ten times worse! :( Sarah

kimberlyinva: Just wanted to say that is a fascinating story. I've only been through the "before" photos and the part of the journal where they purchased the house and already I'm hooked! I can't find a single shot of the exterior (today) though. Not yet anyway :) Again, very interesting link, thanks for posting! victoriandream: considering you're working from the top down, and you mentioned cement fiber board siding, I wanted to suggest the Building A Home forum here, would swear I've seen references to that type siding (I only pop in there occasionally, though.) There is a member here who went through a major remodel of an older home and created a blog much like the one in kimberly's link above. I can't remember who it is, but I'll do some checking and post back if I find her. I was going to suggest "The Old House" forum here, but see you've already found that one ;)