Patrice -- there are tons of pics of our siding on my website, along with the whole story of why we were residing (and re-roofing) a 6 year old house in the first place. We went with the smooth lap siding and used a 4" lap to simulate the siding on old clapboard houses. The siding was hung pre-primed and we painted it on-site with SW Duration Exterior. I believe I included some closeup shots of the installation details (metal flashing behind joints, how the hardie needs to be cut short at any roof-wall intersections, etc.) These are all things your installers should already know, but you might want to make sure they are doing them right, because if not, JH won't honor your warranty (they'll blame any problems on the installer and rightfully so, but that won't help you). If you don't want to sift through the whole saga, click the Show All link and go to the very end -- the last set of pictures (#382 and on) was posted after the siding had been up 4 years so you can see how it held up. Here's one: Good luck with your decision. Here is a link that might be useful: Our house...

@dcw0405, same… (even older thread now!). Our windows and doors are sierra pacific black sable, which have a navy cast to them. I was looking at the new magnolia collection stone beach but was told the magnolia colors cost 30% more! Would love to see pics of pearl gray lap siding with dark windows.

Would love to hear from anyone who used a white from the Hardie “dream collection”…I’m renovating a colonial and want a true white. The arctic white is very popular where I live and it definitely appears gray, especially next to white Azek trim and it’s not the e look I’m going for.

Hi all, just an update for those interested. The weather has been abominable here in MI so no work has been done - just lots of equipment sitting in our backyard, ha! So, in my mind, I made a mistake not getting Hardie or Certainteed or Azek trim priced out to start with in order to look good with my Hardie planks. The installer did say the aluminum would look good and kind of discouraged me from going w/Hardie, but as I said, I regret not getting pricing on that. So rather than redoing the aluminum job I asked him to price out Hardie and Certainteed for the fascia, and the frieze boards. It adds quite a lot to our project. Is this normal? I mean, we didn't have a lot of Hardie plank to start with as our house has brick below and Hardie above, and not even above everywhere, but still I am surprised by the many thousands extra it will cost. Does anyone recommend how to get a good estimate to compare? I spoke with another installer who said he won't look at the job because there will be warrantee issues if one installer does the plank and another the trim.... Thank you for any and all advice!