Jo Ann, I'm so glad I could have been of some help to somebody. I've gotten so much help from this forum. I was laughing when you mentioned your DH showing the contractors pictures of our mitered corners. I have shown our builder so many pictures from this forum and cited to him things people have said and done on this forum as if it was the definitive authority on building. He was always a good sport about it, although I could sense him rolling his eyes everytime I went in on GW. I'm glad you like how our house has turned out. It's fun seeing the different takes on the Shingle style house. I can't wait to see yours and Kate's and Shelly's. Although, sometimes I have to admit, it's not a good thing bc I start getting buyer's remorse and second guessing myself. I'll see your beautiful granite and wonder, may be I should have picked something like that.... :) I love our house though and have launched into decorating it with a similar intensity as building it. So, yes, we did end up going with SW Concord Buff for the entire house. We like how it turned out. I think it's a good base color for the house. It is warm and cozy, and we tend to gravitate toward those warm tones; so, it works for us. We painted a bunch of rooms other colors anyway and plan on painting some more; so, it really was meant to just be a launching off point. Having 4 boys, I have been forced to explore the blue spectrum more than I'd like. :) The area above the paneling in the Great Room (which btw is fake. It's just a bunch of trim molding over drywall, but you wouldn't be able to tell) is SW Safari as is the chimney flue in the GR. The color in the barrel vault in the foyer is and RL Metallic gold paint, which we love. The color in the dining room is BM Waterbury Green. if you lived nearby, I'd give you 3 gallons. We way overbought that paint! It's a really nice warm blue. The height of the moulding in the powder room is about 8.5 feet (we have 10 ft. ceilings). It was kind of arbitrarily placed, and if I were to do it again, I would line it up with the top of the 8 ft. door frame instead of 6 inches above it. The moulding was a last minute add that our trim guy did as a favor to me. I had a paint line there at first, which I didn't like bc it wasn't razor straight, and I asked him to put the moulding on, and he said he'd do it for free bc it was so easy. Our trim guy was awesome. The vanity sinks are the Kohler Ladena. We have the smaller size in the guest bath and 2 of the larger ones in our Master bath. We really like them. I'm honestly not too crazy about the coordination of the trim and cabinet color. I posted a bit on the drama of my white cabinets and trim. Our windows came pre-painted in Andersen White, and so, our trim was painted to match. We tried to match the cabinets as well, but they ended up being a bit more grey than the trim. If I knew that they weren't going to match, I would have gone with a creamier cabinet color, since I'm not at all a grey person. Oh well. I've gotten over that bc all the other colors and elements in the room have taken away from that grey undertone and brought the warmth back in. I will definitely post more pictures as we get things more settled. Our garage came out unexpectedly wonderful and our upstairs rooms are really fun as well. I just need to get them more put together. Everyday, we feel lucky to be in this house, and it is a far nicer house than anything I ever imagined that I'd live in. Sometimes it feels surreal. Anyway, it's been a fun journey and I'm glad to have been able to share it with this forum. I'm so glad I can look forward to seeing your progress as well as others so that I can get my building fix. Good luck!

I also like the Owens Corning visualizer to help with seeing different exterior house colors together. The only problem was some of the Ben Moore colors on the Owens site is some of the colors are no longer available. I also found a site by an interior designer named Barbara Meglis that was very helpful. The address for this site is yourcolorcoach.wordpress.com Good luck with your decisions! Carol

We are also having a million dollar house built and while watching our siding being installed in the rain, several things the installers said raised red flags. I downloaded LP SmartSide installation instructions and found that our nails are seriously overdriven, the ends of the planks are not painted, the butt joints have no space between them, and given all of that, I doubt that the flashing was done correctly, or anything else for that matter. We gave a copy of the instructions to our GC and he said he would have someone come and check it. We have been extremely upset, knowing that we have NO warranty on our siding as it is. I even called LP and they confirmed. They said he is going to have to bite the bullet and replace all of it. From what he said the day we met with him over this issue, he thinks he’s going to fix it. There is NO way to fix it. If they try to cut the boards to create gaps, they’ll cut the Tyvek under it. As it is, I think a lot of Tyvek will need to be replaced when they remove the existing siding because it will be full of nail holes. Construction has moved along very slowly and we just want to get moved in. Replacing the siding will have to wait, but it’s going to be very unpleasant if we need to hold back back enough money to cover new siding when it comes time to make our final payment and move in. Any suggestions on dealing with our GC on that, or do we just pay in full and ask for a written agreement that the siding will be replaced within the first year? No way the original installers will be doing the replacement. It took them FIVE MONTHS to finish the install. The siding was on pallets outside through many rainstorms. It’s the textured, but it should not have been out in the rain as it was. We’ve lost so much sleep over this!

Unfortunately, Boral discontinued it's clapboard, and is currently only available in other profiles. The same is true of the similar Certainteed product, Icon. Or rather, I think Icon has been discontinued altogether. Everlast is another to take a look at.