Thanks for the kind words. My heart is typically drawn to one allover exterior, but am now fearing a brick entry would be overkill. Curious as to what a shingle/siding entry might look like as we are doing shingle siding on the dormers. I tried to repost with a different title but it may have gotten deleted. I have always love the cottage cedar shake look but was fearful of using in oklahoma. No one does it here unless you are in a historical district(like soonermagic) I wasn't crazy about doing a brick home with rock entry which everyone does here. I just couldn't fit the rock in with what I had in my mind. I guess I am still trying to find a cottage/beach house/hampton vibe in there somewhere....

I have Nichiha shakes on my home but we bought the primed and painted them. We love the way they look and our workers thought they were easier to put on (than Hardie) because they came in longer sections. Sorry I can't help with the stain question!

I don't know if you've chosen your shingle color yet, but I know how you feel. I felt very apprehensive when picking out my shingle color. I had the look of our home in my head, and it had a dark roof, not black, but dark. When picking my brick and mortar color, NOBODY agreed with my selection except for my husband. The supply company even told my builder that it was NOT a color of mortar that was ever used with my brick color. After that was over, then there was the shingle selection. Apparently noone agreed with that either, except my husband. Everytime I picked a dark color, someone from my building team would hesitate. Finally the project lead suggested Autumn Brown by Tamko at www.tamko.com. It has a combination of browns with a chocolate brown, which is the color of our mortar. The shingles went up on the house today, and will be completed tomorrow, and the color is perfect for the house. I was concerned, even after we ordered a sample and set it next to the brick and mortar samples. I also used www.colorplan.com to give me a clue as to what colors might look good on the roof. I hope you are pleased with your choice. Here is a link that might be useful: My home build blog

Sympathy extended. I suspect it doesn't look as bad to anyone else as it does to you. Before going "whole hog" on trying to strip that paint off, consider all the advise you get, then experiment on a tile or two located where it will be least obvious if it doesn't work. Do you still have some of the paint you used? If you have any shakes left over from when they were put on the house (yeah, long shot), paint one and then try stripping the paint back off. Because of the thin/side edges, removing that paint by hand will be a real chore. I suspect sandblasting has the potential to damage the shakes. You'd likely come out better adding to -- covering -- rather than trying to remove -- that paint. If you're thinking about replacing the siding and if you like a rustic look … but don't want to go through this again … something to consider: https://www.loghomeshoppe.com/pine-quarter-log-siding.html Good luck.