Years ago we replaced our rotting wood siding with vinyl siding, and it was the worst mistake. It looks cheap and ugly. Your house is beautiful.

It would be a sad day in CT if you choose to do vinyl. I imagine it would have a negative valuation impact to your home. We utilize Louisiana Pacific's Smartside Lap, shake, and vertical siding products quite a lot on the custom homes we are building up here in Northern Minnesota. We have moved away from the cement siding in favor of Smartside. Great 50 year transferable warranty on the product. You can get it prefinished or primed (paint it yourself). The trim sizes range from 2" to 12" widths, which allow you to do a lot with the exterior look of the home. That said, if you are looking at resale in 5 years and the current cedar siding is in good condition, hire out having the cedar cleaned and use Sikkens as suggested by others. Regarding the step flashing, there should be no reason to replace, unless someone took shortcuts during the initial construction of the home. Step flashing is fairly robust and the roofing contractor should be expected to carefully maintain it during the tear-off process. However, if you hire some backwoods wild men on the cheap to rip, snort, and tear things up, such as jamming their tear-off tools into the step flashing and putting holes in it....then you will have a dilemma and increased costs facing you. I would say it is important to set the level of expectation prior to the work being done in this case.

Many homebuyers don't want to do the maintenance themselves and the expense of paying contractors can be out of reach for a new buyer.

So while I think re-staining is best option, a different product might actually be preferred by many buyers.

Here is another option for siding. This one is designed for vertical: http://www.canexel.ca/Ultra-Plank-en.php
Would keep some of the look of present siding and is an engineered wood product. No idea on the cost difference.

OK, no vinyl. I'll check into CenExcel.

Meanwhile, a follow-up question. The house was built 27 years ago. What key elements would make it look like it was built last year?

As I mentioned landscaping is underway. Others have mentioned garage doors. I'm biased of course, but I thought the herringbone pattern looked pretty good. What kind of doors would modernize the look?

Thanks again

If resale and low maintenance is what you are most concerned with, which is a valuable point I would NOT cover the house in Vynil Siding as any educated buyer will only see it as an extra expense to have it removed and replaced. It will NOT be an attractive incentive whatsoever. If anything it may keep someone from buying the place. Cement Fiber Board as suggested in earlier comments would be your best bet. You will retain the "Cedar" (Vertical+Anlgled) look that is so architecturaly significant to the style of the home while reduding maintenance. It is a bit more expensive but I believe will get your money back as it would be a Low Maintenance incentive to a prospective buyer. check out the link below, just one of many manufacturers that now produce cement fiber board:

http://bluelinxco.com/Portals/0/docs/LiteratureLibrary/Siding%20and%20Trim/Fiber%20Cement/CertainTeed/CT%20FiberCement%20Idea%20Book.pdf

Rick, what do you have going around the foundation of the home? Hard to tell in the photo. What would look great is a nice ledgestone rock covering the exposed foundation (if that is what I'm seeing). I think the cedar siding and the herringbone garage doors are awesome! Not a big fan of the green painted garage service door though. Maybe a dark mocha (see Rollex color chart) or something that matches to your ext window trim to make the door disappear. Keep in mind that a nice architectural shingle, like Certainteed's Landmark Pro or something similar with some shadow lines will change the look of the house as well. Might be smart to do the roof job now and see what impact that has to the look before ripping off perfectly good cedar siding. Got to admit that a home that blends nicely with the natural setting has a lot of appeal to me. Great looking home.

Thanks. The foundation is bare concrete and somewhat exposed. The water table is high here so we were not able to sink the basement as far as we originally planned. I'm not familiar with ledgestone rock. Is that a thin rock facade glued to the foundation or something else? We are planning architectural shingles. We were holding off until we made a siding decision so we could choose an appropriate roof color.

I will post a picture tomorrow of vinyl after 6 years

@ Lonnie Clackum: Disturbed by your comment “…get some Hardi plank, then find some Mexican contractors to install it cheap…” I assume you are not suggesting that the poster hire someone without the skills to do the job. So if the sufficiently skilled contractor is Mexican, why should they be paid less than any other contractor? I’m sure your intent was only to help the poster with a suggestion for his beautiful home but it feels wrong for that comment to go unchallenged. Forgive me if I misinterpreted the meaning of your comment.

DON'T DO IT (for all the above reasons)!!! We have a similar-looking house with vertical cedar siding needing replacement and investigated mentioned fabricated products. Could not find a product with vertical boards other than large sheets that would need horizontal trim at the junctions of the panels, destroying the vertical look. You could change to a horizontal look but that's not what we felt kept the look we wanted.
Went with cedar and light gray stain, and LOVE it.

Rick, One of the biggest mistake most people make when building a home is pushing the house too far into the ground. Sounds like you made a good decision on height, but the flip side is exposed concrete. A lower cost product that can be utilized to address the bare concrete is a troweled on product called Tuff II. It is in our big box stores here in MN. Read more at: http://styro.net/TuffIIFoamAndICFCoating.html. The ledgestone I referred to is more of a look. With stone, you will have more investment to get it done, but it sure would look good with that cedar siding. You would need to find a regional stone supplier or showroom to look at the possibilities, but if you want to research, you can check out http://www.brockwhite.com/masonry-products. Keep in mind that Brockwhite is a midwest supplier. But you can get a sense of the product choices, such as natural stone, prostone, cultured stone, thin brick, etc.

Rick, right now there is a big resurgence of young people who want modern style homes - especially well built 27 year old homes with good lines - particularly something like cedar siding. Even painted cedar is superior to the other cladding options - cedar will last 80 years where all the other products are perhaps given a 20 - 25 year warranty. You don't know what you have. You don't have to worry about your home being difficult to sell, you will get a premium for a cedar sided home.

As for the "how do I keep my house looking fresh to sell" query, here is some advice. Get new modern oversized light fixtures - this is a good place to search / one example http://www.lightingdirect.com/plc-lighting-plc-8026-transitional-1-light-ambient-lighting-outdoor-wall-sconce-ceiling-flushmount-from-the-piccolo-collection/p1683596?collection=PLC%20Lighting%20Piccolo&term=PLC%20Lighting%20Piccolo
Paint the front door a bright citrus green, keep the side door darker. Consider a taupe stain next time you stain the house - gray-brown. Make the contractor for your roof take off and put back on every cedar element that is part of the envelope that keeps your house dry - you should take a look at them for your own information while - most wood 27 years later wouldn't come off nicely whole - yours will still be going strong.

Recommend the person suggesting "...find some Mexican contractors..." edit their post. I find the remark offensive!

You can't edit ignorance

"You can't edit ignorance"..................I love that!!! well said! ;)

Thanks for your help everyone

If resale is in your future, play to your strengths. It's never going to be a new colonial (oxymoron there, but you get my point) vinyl box, so don't try to be. The house was designed to blend into the wooded setting. IMHO I think the current stain color is too red, I would lean toward the greys or blacks, all one color. Frankly, I would be more concerned with the interior. 28 years old- if the words formica, popcorn ceilings, or cultured marble can be used to describe the interior, those are the things that will turn off buyers.

Love your house with the authentic siding…here is a beautiful home and in the description is gives info on the Cabot stain used.

Cedar is the real-deal, thats why all the companies have 'looks like cedar' products. If you are going to sell in the upcoming couple of years, get it washed and stained, and preserve the look and design. Nothing kills curb appeal like a plastic home ! And as for your roofers, they just want to make their life easier. The new owners will love you for it.

Rick, what did you decide to do? Please update!

Please don't replace with vinyl! Your house is pretty amazing the way it is, all you need to do it clean it up a bit and do like others have said and spruce up the landscaping, update the exterior lights, add potted plants in front of the garage doors and maybe repaint the exterior doors from the green to something more appealing.

Rick - I have a very similar style house and have the same thoughts as you do - I would love to find out what you did....please update....

We eventually decided to suffer through another prep and re-stain. Came out nice.

I'm coming in a little late to this discussion but I do feel your pain with the cedar siding. We redesigned our home into a mild contemporary 30 years ago using western red cedar siding stained with semi-transparent natural cedar stain. It looked beautiful and we were very happy for many years. However, it did require frequent prep and re-stain to keep the look. I always dreaded the prep and re-stain. It was such a mess (and expense) plus I felt it lost a little bit of it's great look each time. I always wondered why the many homes I saw like mine eventually ended up with solid stain, paint or resided. Now I know why. There is also a growing national woodpecker issue on cedar houses plus the carpenter bee problems. We worked through it all with various solutions but it was getting to be too much of a hassle. Plus we felt the contemporary look was getting dated (at least in our area) and would hurt resale some day. After a lot of research and trying different siding looks on our house on the computer we decided to go with horizontal siding. We ended up with Everlast Siding by Norandex. It is 60% stone dust held together with polymers and color goes all the way through or it can be painted. It has a better look then Hardi Plank (looks like a real piece of cedar) plus it has none of the issues associated with Hardi.

I attached 2 pics. The first one is a close up of our cedar at it's worst just before we resided. I think we went 6 years without a staining. The second pic shows our new look.

"Go to Lowe's or Home Depot and get some Hardi plank, then find some Mexican contractors to install it cheap..."

OMG! What a pig!

@mnovak, thanks for sharing your story. Your home looks up to date and much better. I too had a cedar contemporary with serious woodpecker problems (I didn't realize it was a larger problem). The house desperately needed to be resided. I would have gladly used wood if not for the constant upkeep as well as the constant woodpecker issues. We decided to go with a high quality vinyl (gasp) and it looks great, no longer stuck in the 80s. We did not go with the hardiplank (or similar) because for our house, it would have cost 50% more to do so. We love our newly sided home, as I am sure you love yours too.

I'm where you were smiley. I've been driven crazy lately with the woodpeckers and after 36 years, the cedar is just in bad shape. I've considered all the various products and am pretty sure I'm going with vertical vinyl. I have no real concern about resale as I expect to live here until I can no longer get up the steps. I've enjoyed the cedar for over 20 years but it's time for something less labor intensive.

We fixed it by selling the house:-)

very late to the conversation but facing the very same problems.

The roofing contractor probably also sells and installs vinyl siding, that's why you're getting the suggestion. If you replace with vinyl it may not only have an impact on your home's resale value, it may also mean it will take longer to sell.

@ Kathy K Your lucky your house doesn't have strong contemporary lines. You should be able to change the look without too much trouble using siding and trim. You can see my before and after pics about 5 posts back. As far as resale goes I guess it depends on the area. In my area contempories are pretty much considered outdated and don't have much of a market. People share the belief that vertical siding belongs on sheds. I still like them on large isolated lots in the woods but would never again go through the maintenance nightmare.

Just my 2 cents... we are in the process of house shopping and have small children. I want the maintenance free vinyl and will not look at cedar houses. Cedar is touted for it's "real wood and looks so nice" but it requires regular maintenance. Most busy families have a hard enough time getting their gutters cleaned regularly, never mind staining the house. I vote for vinyl. It's just sad that so many houses around me have cedar. If I have to I'll do it, but the first year it needs staining/maintenance, I will begin my bargaining of removing it for maintenance free vinyl.

mnovak99, your house looks great

If it is installed correctly, cedar doesn't require maintenance at all, and will outlast vinyl siding. We've had cedar on a house since 1983 and it shows no sign of deterioration

Got a pic? I'm curious to see what cedar looks like that hasn't been stained, painted or preserved in over 30 years.

would love to see a pic as well

The roof was replaced in the 90's but the 1x3 bevel siding and trim is from 1983. There isn't a hint of decay on any of it. Cedar wears in. Vinyl wears out.

My dad is a GC so he never puts paint or a deck on his personal house.

You know. If all your neighbors have vinyl you have to do vinyl. And if all your neighbors have wood siding you have to do wood siding.

Very nice. I guess if you are going to do cedar thats the way to do it, horizontal, no finish and let it weather out. As you can see from the pictures in the previous posts many of use were stuck with these vertical sided comtemporaries. Trying to keep that fresh cedar look is a maintenance nightmare. I suppose letting it weather out would be an option but it wouldn't look as good as it does on yours.

Yeah unfinished cedar is a hard sell because it ages like that. That tiny horizontal siding keeps the unevenness broken up into smaller pieces

Very nice Ryan

Ryan: What is that roof?!?! Is it really copper? It's amazing.

The second picture is very House of the Seven Gables-y in a modern sort of way. Wow.

Ryan: Is anything being done to control carpenter bees and woodpeckers? Cedar is decay and insect resistent but is soft and woodpeckers and carpender bees love to destroy it. In my neck of the woods they would have a feast on that unfinished cedar. It was a chore keeping them off my cedar no matter how many different methods I tried including semi-transparent stain with insecticide in it.

My dad uses a badminton racket for the wood bees. It's a real problem. Because then the woodpeckers move in, then the flying squirrels go where they go. It's not really a question of what siding to use but what neighborhood you live in and the comparables locally. If you live in Milford CT you'd be dumb to put wood siding cause he whole town is vinyl. That house I pictured above doesn't have vinyl siding within five miles of it. Here's the interior. It's all cherry. My dad did all the work. The trim is flush with the plaster cause the plaster was done after the trim.

Its low on flourish and high in technique. He tried really hard but it doesn't look like he tried too hard

I think pestilence is more of a problem for new growth lumber from managed forrests and the old growth stuff we got in the 80's is a little more dense and not a succeptible to insects.

Talk to different roofers. Yours sound lazy and want vinyl so their job is easier. I see this all the time, lazy drywallers convince homeowners to stipple ceilings, or the worst, roofers cut off the rafter tail kicks on bungalows for easy and no maintenance soffits and facia. Sad.

Now, that's a house of substance, Ryan.

Oops very old thread.