We have been very pleased with the Hardiboard. No maintenance at all so far and we have had it for about 10 years (? I think). One irritating thing was that a squirrel gnawed on the edge of a couple boards, but not a big deal as it is not really noticeable. We did need to redo our trim at that point. Wish we had gone ahead anyway because I doubt DH will ever bother with it now. Sigh. Oh, and I am beginning to think we may not have the taupe-ours isn't actually as dark as your first picture now that I look at it. I can't remember where I stuck my home improvements binder or I would check. I will look for it. GW isn't letting me share my photos from my iPad these days or I would post one for you. Very irritating. I will see if there are any photos on the Macbook.

I swear by pre-finished Cobblestone. It's the third time I am using it on a renovation. When I started in 1990, it was only available on the West coast and I had it shipped to the NY area. It goes beautifully with beige or greige and with white trim. Limestone or sandstone Belgian block (Unilock) and facing if you want a stone look on your foundation and/or columns. Neighbors used a similar painted color and painted twice over the 13 years that my pre-finish was installed. I NEVER painted, except for the Azek trim. Word to the wise...the Azek gives you touch up paint to cover the nails...it turns dark grey and looks like speckles so you have to repaint that in a couple of years. Incidentally the JamesHardie folks honor their warranty. It is possible to have some damage to any painted product with heavy rainfall such as we have been having on the east coast, and when that happened on one side of my home that bore the brunt (two boards) they replaced the entire side...labor and material.

I have it on my barn, and it chips easily. Plus it doesn’t hold nails and screws as well as wood.

Thanks everyone, and yes, res2architect, we are only looking at Hardie Board and Davinci for siding; we have had large sample boards from DaVinci in hand for 6 months, though only small color sample boards for the Hardie Board. It is hard to compare in part because there are not a lot of images out there showing whole-house siding with DaVinci shakes (we have asked the manufacturer for more). We are really interested in materials that require less maintenance, and therefore do not want to do real shake siding; same thinking with the roof. That, and we are at the edge of dense forested dunes and do not want the added fire risk of real cedar shakes. Mark, we are still deciding on roof. Though originally designed with a standing seam metal roof, your words of caution last August prompted us to look at other options. We have looked at samples of several roofing materials, including the DaVinci roofing products and several "metal" shingles, but probably leaning more towards higher impact-rated luxury asphalt (e.g., Certainteed Presidential IR or Belmont). Since we are considering DaVinci siding, we would not want to use a similar product on the roof for esthetic reasons. In addition, we are required to install gutters as part of our runoff water management plan (environmental regulations with the State of MI EGLE in this particular Critical Dune location) and since we will also likely use heating elements in select areas, we have been advised by our roofer (and gutter) subs that this is more challenging (though not impossible) with a metal roof. The metal roof was initially more appealing because of its ability to shed tree detritus and snow, but of course that same snow (and ice) shedding capability is another potential concern and hazard (though that can be mitigated with snow guards). That, and metal roof would be far more difficult and expensive to repair. We are still waiting on final price estimates for both Hardie Board and DaVinci siding, but expect the DaVinci siding to be substantially more. I will share those comparisons once we have numbers in hand. Thanks everyone -