Your home is an expression of your personality. When you invest in replacement siding, be intentional about the style you want to achieve. Your siding is as unique as the clothes you choose to wear—and it should showcase your house in its best light.
Fortunately, with today’s numerous siding options, homeowners can enjoy striking beauty, paired with excellent resistance to moisture for lasting performance. Here are some of our favorite modern design trends that can help you achieve a memorable exterior style for your home.
6 Ways to Give Your Home Exterior Special Style
- Mix and Match Siding Styles
Using different types of siding can help you bring attention to specific features of the exterior—such as gables, dormers, the front entrance, garage doors, patios, or bow, bay, and picture windows. By varying textures, materials, and designs, you create a look that grabs attention.
- Combine different materials, such as stone veneer and fiber cement siding, so that visitors can’t help but notice your home’s beauty.
- Use one type of siding board on one story of your home, and a different one on the top story. Horizontal panels on the lower level will blend nicely with the vertical above it.
- Use traditional vertical or horizontal panels on the main exterior walls—and create pops of style with shingle siding elsewhere.
- Mix and match different sizes of vertical boards and battens for a rustic farmhouse design. And remember, this design is not one-size-fits-all. You can space your battens wider or more narrowly than your neighbor’s to ensure your look is personalized. Thinner spacing makes a home look taller, so you can create appealing visual illusions with this simple tip.
- Blend Different Building Materials and Textures
Dramatic beauty can be achieved by choosing more than one type of building material to clad your home. The visual difference nicely catches the eye, so don’t feel like you have to only use one siding type.
- Combine wood elements (or better yet, Hardie siding that looks like woodgrain but lasts longer) with stone or brick.
- Use stone veneer on specific home features like your front entryway or a large dormer, with more traditional siding boards on the rest of your home.
- Even if you use one type of siding, you have options. Hardie siding comes in textures that offer smooth, sand, stucco, and woodgrain looks. Mix and match these to create interesting contrasts of light and shadows around your home throughout the day.
- Play Up Your Home’s Specific Features
Take a look at your house and think about what its strongest accents are. Draw attention to those features by carefully selecting colors and siding styles that complement them. Here are a few popular examples to get you started:
- Draw the eye to features such as gables by covering them in half-round or offset shingles. This creates an attractive, visible contrast with other areas of the home that sport long, straight siding panels.
- Board-and-batten siding is a great accent style for larger dormers, as the distinct look catches the eye.
- If you prefer a smooth, modern look, consider using V-Groove or Square Channel panels from the Hardie Artisan siding line. These siding boards deliver a sharp, stylish look that is sleek and contemporary.
- Choose Hues that Are Bold and Bright
Many homeowners gravitate toward traditional siding colors that have been passed down from generation to generation—such as brown, gray, and white. But there’s no reason you have to go that route. In fact, dramatic palettes are in! Between today’s paint options and the rich hues available through companies like James Hardie, which offers over 700 custom colors for its siding, you have lots of options. Use a Color Visualizer Tool to play with different color combinations from the convenience of your home.
- Deep navy shades make a great contemporary substitute for more traditional blacks, browns, or grays.
- Hues of green, from dark hunter green to light moss, are super popular right now. Combine them with white trim for a crisp, modern feel.
- Dark grays for siding can be balanced with a front door that’s bright yellow or red.
- Go with a black shade of siding for drama, and brighten up the look with light-colored patio furnishings.
- Homes with lots of unique fixtures, such as intricate Victorians, can showcase many shades, including pastels.
- Be Intentional about Indoor-Outdoor Spaces
Create a streamlined look for areas such as entryways, foyers, patios, and decks by bringing interior elements outside, or vice versa.
- Designers love leveraging shiplap siding or oversized panels in entrance areas to match the look of the home’s exterior—thus making your siding choices seem even more deliberate.
- Another way to achieve that seamless style is to use the same or a similar color palette inside and out.
- You could also apply siding in unusual places indoors, such as on the ceiling of one room or around specialty fixtures such as the fireplace.
- Add Special Personal Touches
While you don’t want your property to look so unusual that it doesn’t blend into your neighborhood, there are always ways to draw out the unique exterior features of your house to achieve a pleasingly personalized charm.
- Why not choose new columns that stand out on your front porch? Thick, square-angled, natural wood-stained columns offer a contemporary, yet welcoming touch. /li>
- Want your front entrance to have a striking effect for all who visit you? Clad its walls with elegant-looking cultured stone siding.
- Update your garage door so its design features and colors match your new siding. The streamlined complementary style will give your exterior added oomph.
Achieve a Fresh Style for Your Home with Gorgeous New Siding from John McCarter Construction
Ready to explore the possibilities for your home exterior makeover? Find inspiration in what other homeowners in Michigan are doing with John McCarter Construction! See siding trends and other looks in real-life execution by browsing through our gallery of finished remodels—and begin imagining your home transformation!
