Congratulations on your new home! Weathered shingle houses are VERY common in my "stomping grounds" of eastern NH and eastern Maine. The shingles tend to go gray more often than brown around here, but we do see quite a bit of that distinctive mixture of browns ranging from almost golden-y to a bitter-chocolate color. Probably the biggest thing to pay attention to is the color value of the roof - the accent colors should be about the same value (meaning lightness or darkness) as the roof. If the roof is too pale for the rest of the house it can look a little like the roof is going to lift off and float away, if it's too dark for the rest of the colors it looks overly heavy, like it's weighting down the house (a very common problem). If your roof is light-colored, like the verdigris color that's pretty popular for green metal roofing, look to the lighter tones in the variegated shingles and riff off those for the color value of your trim. The accent color I see paired with this siding most often is a rich browny-red, which would look wonderful and not necessarily all Christmasy with the green roof. If you want to "perk up" any window sashes or other details with a lighter color, a very deep cream or even putty would look nice, but don't tart it up too much. Another color I've seen work really well a few times is a slatey blue, although the success of that would again depend on the roof. Check out the deeper blues in the BM Historical line like Hale Navy or Newburyport Blue. When we were househunting two summers ago we looked at a little bitty antique (very early 19th century) Cape Cod with weathered-brown shingles. It had white window sashes and wide board-and-batten shutters (completely operable) and board-and-batten front door were a moderately deep, muted blue-green color. The heavier trim around windows and doors was the same as the shingles. IIRC the roof was halfway between bark brown and charcoal gray. It was a real charmer but not in a great location for us.

I know this is a old post but I am so glad that I finally can across information regarding this. We have a 90s rambler with 7 feet walls and standard size windows. We have a walkout so it is bigger in the back than it is in the front. We are thinking of putting on LP siding but the sizes of the boards are 8 inches with a 6 7/8 reveal or a 6 inch with a 4 7/8 reveal. Our contractor is telling us that the only size he has ever done is 8 inches. I wanted to get some others opinions regarding this. I don’t want to spend all that money and be disappointed.

I follow Studio McGee and she recently built her home and did a mixture of textures with painted brick and so it made me think about incorporating brick. I like mixtures of textures but I don’t want a navy house with white hearty board and red brick— I want it all to be navy with different textures and white trim to get some old world charm so I’m asking for ideas. I have an architect that we are just starting with but you’re right, I’m probably way ahead of the game. I just want to know what I want for the exterior so I can be better prepared to work with the architect. Thanks for all your help!!

On some houses it was done with lap on the bottom, and with shakes on the upper part. This was very common with the Foursquare Style of house typical of 1890-1930. I even have a Foursquare House of this vintage with that dual siding look to stay accurate to that style of house. When I do cedar shingles or clapboards, I typically set them to six inch "exposure" or "reveal". Not only does this give me 1/3 more coverage per square of material, it also divides easily into half foot increments, so a 8 foot wall will have 16 runs to it as an example, or a 7 foot wall will have fourteen. Its very easy to layout a wall with six inch exposure. Since I make my own clapboards and shingles from my own woodlot on my sawmill and shingle mill, stretching my materials is important to me. If you do a search for this, just keep in mind there is variation in terms. For instance, what you call "lap" I assume is what I call "clapboard siding". And what you refer to as "shakes", is probably cedar shingles. That is not really the olde vase/vase argument of verbiage; a shake is 24 inches long and is split or riven, where as a shingle is 14-16 inches long, and sawn on a mill. The latter is far more refined then riven shakes, that have a very rustic look. But I say this only so you know the difference, and for others reading this reply. Most people call cedar shingles shakes even though it technically is not correct.