And the Color is - Shark Whiskers

It was almost a foregone conclusion that we would use fiber cement clapboard siding. It is a very durable material and is a good substitute for wood. I prefer the Certainteed fiber cement siding over the more common HardiePanel because Certainteed has a more realistic woodgrain pattern. I built a house with it and most people didn’t realize it wasn’t wood. To me, the HardiePanel looks a little more like Vac-U-Formed wood. Even from a distance I can tell if it’s Hardie because of the grain pattern.

Each siding manufacturer has a range of colors in their pre-finished product and also provides a paint warranty. We took samples of the siding and viewed them in different conditions and couldn’t find just the right color. Most people pick a color and are done with it. Not us. I called the local Certainteed rep and he said they do custom colors using PPG paint. In fact, there is a 25 year paint warranty from PPG as compared to a 15 year warranty from Certainteed on their pre-finished siding.

Now we just had to find a color. The ubiquitous color in the heart of Centerville is white, but that’s a little too plain. We wanted a light grey-beige kind of a color - but not too grey and not too beige. We picked up some PPG color chips and found a grey-beige color that we liked, but the Whiskers color was too light and the Sharkskin color was too dark, and there was nothing in between. We had a new color mixed which is somewhere between these two colors, so I guess it should be called Shark Whiskers.