our nichiha has been up for a while now and we still have people knock at the door to ask what color we painted our siding. they seem shocked when i tell them it's cement. we're six miles inland in central new jersey and have just come through hurricane sandy with absolutely no damage to the siding. it's unfortunate most of the trees and telephone poles didn't hold up as well. in the meantime, as i drive down our street not everyone was as fortunate. i noticed a newly sided house had to have some repair work done on their hardiboard. ;-) without question, nichiha is superior to hardi. we have a factory finish in weathered gray. love it.

I love both board & batten as well as shakes. I tend to not like a lot of shakes unless the house is shingle style. Around here it is pretty common to have shakes on the part that is bumped out, like an accent. I guess I like option 2 the best, as long as it won't look to busy. Here a photo of a house that has board &batten, stone and shakes. I like this one a lot.

So we did some more test painting and decided on the muted gray/blue for the main sections, similar to what gracie linked. We tried 2 different trim colors and are feeling like the dark gray blends in too much with the blue. The lighter gray seems to have more contrast. What does everyone think? Also, what would you recommend to paint the lower concrete section of the house. The lighter gray trim color if we pick that? Or would you possibly paint it a darker gray like the trim we weren't digging? Gray/Blue with light gray trim: Gray/Blue with dark gray trim (on right side of garage): Closer pic of Gray/Blue with darker trim: lighter trim in the shade: Close-up of lighter gray trim: (Middle of pic): Lighter gray trim again. Lower concrete section that will need to be painted:

Chris your inspiration house has a large proportion of the natural cedar color to the blue and a lot of what we can see on that house in the photo is in shadow which makes a big difference. You're trying to choose a color for your house without a clean background - the yellow is a player in making colors look different. I took a picture of 2 colors from one of my paint decks for you - put them on a table on our porch that is similar in color to your cedar but when I compare the picture to the paint deck it's horribly off so I hesitate to post it for you. I may email it but just know that it's not representational at all. I'm looking at Benjamin Moore Everard Blue CW-575 and Wetherburn's Blue CW-580. these are from their Williamsburg collection, grayed blues with green in them. Even on the B/M website the colors are off on my computer. I'm not certain these are the *right* colors for your house but it's a slightly different direction that brings your setting into the mix and a place to start. Hale Navy is part of the Historical Color collection from B/M - that collection is a good place to be as well. The colors are dirtier which is good - what you don't want is a bright, clear color on your house. There are different ways to approach trim and house colors - they can be high contrast with crisp definition or lower contrast and more subtle transition. Neither one is better, they are just different looks but your trim will still be differentiated from the house body with less contrast. Are you planning to paint your eves and rake boards like the inspiration house?