The copper cap for the door surround was installed yesterday (there’s a protective plank covering it in this photo). The trickiest part for our contractor will be installing the fascia board up at the top corner where our electrical wire meets the house.

Once this project is done, all that’s left will be adding shutters. We’ve got our old black shutters covered in a tarp in the back yard – we’ll be putting those back on the sides of the house. They’re a tad too wide for the width of our window openings, but they’ll never be closed. However, the top three windows on the front of the house need 14″ x 51.5″ shutters since the center false window needs shutters to fit perfectly in the opening. For the ganged windows, we’ll have to fashion some bi-fold shutters out of 14″x51.5″ shutters so they’ll appear to be functional.

We had to modify the plinth on the base of the pilaster – I disliked the gap between our Thermatru door’s threshold and the edge of the originally designed plinth, so we widened the plinth and added a sloped “cap” on top of it to soften the edges and ease the transition from the base moulding to the plinth:

I’m really happy with how things are going. Our contractor, Brian Burris (Nicely Done Co. in southern NH), and his crew have been really great (even in these frigid January in New Hampshire temperatures) – and I’m an admittedly picky customer. They’re doing a fine job and I’m looking forward to calling them back to build us a deck and pergola – hopefully this coming summer.

I finally nailed down the look I wanted for our home. Looking back on my older posts, I’m kind of embarrassed at my taste – and that was only a few months ago! I settled on a traditional colonial look – after all, our house was built in that style. I selected James Hardie Hardieplank fiber cement siding in “Evening Blue.” The front door is Thermatru’s fiberclass Classic Craft American – we had it stained in light oak. They’ve just begun putting up the siding and I’m relieved – I’m happy with the dark blue color.

Here’s my most recent Sketchup/Kerkythea render:

My only concern is that the light fixtures might be too big. They’re Hinkley’s “Cape Cod” onion lantern style in the largest size offered. Each one is a full 26″ high, including the tall hook. I’d read that two light fixtures flanking the front entrance should measure about 1/4 the height of the door, which would be 20″ in our case. Since the bulk of our fixture is probably about 20″, it should be OK.

Again, a reminder of what our house currently looks like (click for larger version):

We’ll be keeping the existing shutters. One of them fell off in a recent windstorm and is sitting in our garage right now.

In a nutshell, here are my current questions & concerns:
1. What kind of door surround would look best on our house? I’ve been told it’s best to have our contractor build it from scratch rather than going with a Fypon kit. I would like something that looks solid and correctly designed. It would be nice if the cornice projected a bit, as it currently does – I’ve seen a lot of historical homes in Portsmouth with this. It would be neat to have small corbels appear to support this cornice in some way, but I haven’t seen much precedent for this other than the photo I snapped in Newburyport (see below). Our budget is not particularly big for this door surround (not including the door) – $2,000 – $3,000 materials & Labor. Our granite stoop is 8′ wide.

2. What can we do about that little window over the entry? I think it look rather odd and out of place. The window straddles two closets for the upstairs front bedrooms – in fact, the dividing wall between the two closests appears to be molded right into the center of those glass bricks! So putting in an equal sized window to the other two is out of the question. One idea I had was to board up the current one and trim it out to look like a larger window with two closed shutters. I’ve even thought of putting a real window there but boarding it up behind it with a black background!

3. What kind of window header treatment for the two ganged windows can we install to add some more interest to the front of the house?

4. How wide should our corner trim be? We’d like to add a water table, too.

5. I like the look of dentil trim around the subfascia of the house. Would this be appropriate on our home? There’s not much room between our upper windows and the roof.

6. The door I’ve chosen is most definitely a Craftsman style door, but I really like it. I would go with a more typical 6-panel, no-glass door if we had sidelites or a transom. We have very little room to add sidelites (and zero room for a transom), so we probably won’t be doing that.

***

Here’s a door surround I came across in Newburyport the other day. This is a home that was only built a few years ago, but fits in nicely with the historical neighborhood in which it’s located (click for larger versions):


… and the window headers:

I also thought this door surround was pretty cool with the brackets supporting the cornice, though I’m not sure how “architecturally correct” it is:

Soooo … here are some of my current Google Sketchup / Kerkythea mockups of my house with various color and door surround options:

James Hardie “Evening Blue” with some sort of off-white, cream-colored trim (which REALLY makes me regret our white vinyl replacement windows!!!!):

… with a shuttered fake window over the entry:

… close-up of entry:

… with a triangular pediment:

And other color options:
James Hardie “Harris Cream”:

… I love yellow, but I think I prefer it in smaller doses.

Certainteed Weatherboards “Olive”:

As far as color schemes go, I’d really like the trim (and gutters) to be painted an off-white color as opposed to pure “Azek white.” However, with those vinyl windows, I’m not sure how bad it will look to trim them out in another color. How I wish I could turn back time and go with new construction windows at the same time as re-siding the house! I love the look of black windows with off-white trim.

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Here are my favorites so far (Sketchup files rendered with Kerkythea):

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… and the Sketchup image:

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— and also a version with a pediment instead of the eyebrow arch —

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*** UPDATE September 9, 2011 ***
Last night while driving through Dover, NH, I came across this entrance on a hip-roof colonial on Cushing Street:

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… I would be very happy with something like this (minus the fanlight and sidelites – no room for those in our setup). The columns are “engaged columns,” which means they’re rounded and appear to be about 3/4 of the column protruding from the face of the house. The pediment doesn’t extend very far from the house. I’ve been looking for commercial sources for engaged columns, but can’t seem to find them.

Other options:
Pilasters and pediment:

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Pilasters and crosshead (also note the false window covering the current small one with closed shutters):

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And what our architect came up with (he also designed benches to flank the front steps. I added a stone barrier instead):

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The architect’s original sketch:

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The stone might be a bit much around the front steps. For now, it’s just an idea. We wouldn’t even attempt to design & install them until next year.

All of the gray siding examples are Certainteed’s fiber cement Weatherboards (5″ straight-edge shingles) in “Silver Plate.” The greenish-gray siding is Certainteed’s “Nantucket Gray” color.

Certainteed and Hardie fan decks:

I think I’ve settled on a Certainteed fiber cement color – “Olive.” It was hard to come to the decision, but what really helped was getting equivalent paint colors and painting large squares of cardboard, placing them in front of the house and then stepping back to evaluate. SO … if you’re interested in Certainteed fiber cement colors, get yourself to a Sherwin Williams store – they have an agreement with Certainteed and have formulas for all their colors. Buy samples in all the colors you’re interested in – even the ones you aren’t – you never know!

I also had a hard time finding good photos of homes with Certainteed fiber cement online. But then I had a pretty good idea – I borrowed Benjamin Moore fan decks (Classic Colors, Color Preview, Historic Colors and all the rest) from my local hardware store and used a swatch book from Certainteed (I picked one up from a local dealer) and actual Certainteed fiber cement samples (also from a local dealer), matched them with the closest equivalent Benjamin Moore paint colors. By googling the Benjamin Moore colors, you can get a sense of what the exterior of your home might look like with the Certainteed equivalent. If you’re here because you googled Certainteed weatherboards, I hope this little chart helps you out:

And finally, you should do your best to get this sample book if you’re interested in Certainteed Weatherboards from a contractor or dealer:

Sometimes I just feel like throwing in the towel and forgetting about this whole renovation.

Have a look at my latest Google Sketchup rendering (this is Certainteed 5″ fiber cement shingles in Pewter):

So this is what I’m considering:

1. James Hardie fiber cement siding – a combination of their HardieShingle and HardiePlank siding. Problem is that the HardieShingles are REALLY expensive – we were told that the price would be somewhere around $360 a square for materials (a square = 100 square feet). I know from the estimate we received from our contractor that he plans to order 23 squares for our home. So we would probably just side the front of the house in shingles and the rest in lap. The other problem is that their shingles are 7″ exposures, and I don’t know how that would work with 4″ reveal lap siding everywhere else. I like their “light mist” gray color option.

Shingles:

Lap:

2. Certainteed Weatherboards fiber cement siding – also a combo of shingles and planks for the same reasons as #1 above. My understanding is that Certainteed might be a little less expensive than Hardie, but that the products are essentially the same. Certainteed has two different grays I’m interested in – “silver plate” and “pewter.” They have a 5″ exposure option in the shingles which would work nicely with 5″ reveal lap siding everywhere else.

Certainteed Weatherboards shingles:

3. Certainteed Weatherboards “Perfection” fiber cement siding – 7″ exposure. This siding has the look of shingles but comes in 12′ long planks and installs just like lap siding. You can get in the same colors and stains as their other fiber cement siding. The drawback is that it looks a little fake – instead of actual cut shingles, there are simply randomly placed grooves, so you don’t get deep shadow lines. Might as well go with vinyl shingle siding, I’m thinking.

Certainteed Weatherboards Perfection shingles:

The big problem with Certainteed is that their fiber cement product seems to be less popular than Hardie (which is kind of the “name brand” of fiber cement siding). I find very few examples of actual homes installed with Certainteed fiber cement – in real life and in google searches. I’ve contacted the company and they seem to be ignoring my request for photos. I’m sure they must have them, right? I also contacted every single recommended installer within a 25-mile radius – I’ve heard back from a few and none have used the fiber cement before. It’s hard to shell out major bucks for something you hope to last forever when you can’t even see it installed in person or a decent enough photograph.

I wasn’t sure where to put it at first, but then I thought I’d put it up temporarily behind the stove in the kitchen while I’m waiting to decide on a backsplash. A friend pointed out that it might actually be a feng shui technique to place a mirror behind a stove, so I Googled it and it turns out to be true! Supposedly, placing a mirror behind a cooktop represents wealth by reflecting an abundance of food. However, there is some controversy to placing mirrors behind stoves – see here for that info.

Anyway, I like the way it looks so it might become a permanent fixture.

If you’re wondering, the wall color is Benjamin Moore’s “Tropicana Cabana.” The kitchen cabinets are all IKEA Abstrakt White. The floor is a simple checkerboard of Mannington VCT tiles.

I’m not sure how lighting placement works in this layout. I don’t think I’d use exactly those brackets pictured – they were just pulled from Google’s 3D Warehouse.